Keep Baltimore MOVE-ing - Help Fund Movement Lab

See what we are about Our names are Caroline, Gary, Jamal, Sunny & Shara. We were called to reopen Movement Lab in the middle of this worldwide pandemic and financial crisis. We each have our story of how we came to know and love The Lab, as do so many in the Baltimore City Community and beyond. What is the Movement Lab? For those who don’t know, on the surface it is a movement studio, offering classes in many practices. But under that surface it is so much more. It is a safe space and a loving team of leaders and teachers, body and energy workers, that welcome and encourage every person that walks through the door to push the boundaries of movement, to challenge limiting beliefs, to heal and to grow. It is a small business working everyday to be a relevant resource for our community through healing and support. It is a family joined together by a mission and vision, passionate about improving the lives of members through movement, mindfulness, and friendship.

With humble hearts, we create this request for help. 

The Movement Lab has been many things to many people. When the announcement was made that the doors were closing in May of 2020 there was an outpouring of emotions. The Lab was home, a place to heal, release, process, and express. To use movement as a way to cope with the hard things in life. The Pandemic brought a whole new level of hard. And the place that helped to cope with the hardness was about to go away.   

And then, the opportunity to keep this amazing space open presented itself. Reopening in the middle of COVID felt crazy and also like exactly the right thing to do. 

It has been 6 months now. And although we have a strong and consistent COVID protocol, many are not yet comfortable returning to a public space. Many are in financial challenges and don’t have the resources to attend classes. We have been denied every government support program we have applied for. There have been capacity limits placed on us since reopening. We have hopeful hopeful hearts that by spring or summer these challenges will be lighter if not behind us.  

We need your help to sustain and weather the remainder of this storm. We need to raise $125,000 to pay our teachers and staff, keep them employed, pay our rent and bills to remain in the space. Our bare bones operating costs exceed $30,000 a month. We are currently bringing in only a third of that. We have been denied every government support we have applied for. We simply do not have the resources to sustain ourselves under these conditions.  

But we believe there is power and strength in numbers. It’s mathematics. If enough people can pull together to share the burden, the burden becomes less and lighter. Together we can carry this load. “Individually we are but one drop, together we are an ocean”. We believe and hope with all of our hearts that by June things will lighten, jobs will return, and businesses will be able to open fully. And from all of the trauma this experience has created, we believe this space and all that it has to offer, will be needed more than ever. Help us to be here strong and stable, ready to welcome all with open arms.
 
The Movement Lab is not just a dance, martial arts or yoga studio. It is a place full of love, full of acceptance, full of community. It is a place to come home to. To come together, share stories, share space, fine support, hold space, laugh, cry, sweat, move. It is a space that truly welcomes and celebrates all bodies, all walks of life. It is about being strong and being vulnerable. It is about a holistic approach to our wellness, mind, body and spirit. It is about meeting everyone right where they are. It is about saying I see you and you are not alone. Baltimore needs this place. In order to make it accessible to more people, it needs to be stable. In order to be stable it needs more people. COVID is making this stability extremely difficult to achieve. We thank you for any help you can give us. 

With so much love,

-The Movement Lab Team