Heartwood Cleanup Effort

Hello,

my name is Denver and I am the daughter of Ginny and David Shaddock, owners of Heartwood Yoga Institute in Bradenton, FL.

My mother isn’t one to ask for help. She’s usually the one donating time, energy and money to to others’ needs. However this time, I’ve taken it upon myself to ask and here is why.

Heartwood has always been a grassroots, DIY, self-made business. Every plant and building is lovingly created, by hand by Ginny and David. Every dollar placed into the 7.5 acres of Heartwood comes from their pockets directly and the cost of training and classes at our facility has always been the lowest it can possibly be so students have an affordable and fair alternative for Yoga training. In addition, Ginny, David and myself have spent many years teaching everything ourselves, mainly to keep costs low for our students so we can continue to serve and grow and make a difference.

In 2017, we suffered hurricane Irma and came out with thousands of dollars in property damage to the grounds. Only houses and buildings are covered by insurance so these things are paid out of pocket immediately following the job.

In 2020, we all scrambled to stay open and create an online school and after thousands of hours of filming, self editing, creating at 3am and doing absolutely everything ourselves, by miracle of God, our business survived.

Exactly one year ago, on October 30th 2021 my mother suffered a massive heart attack on day 1 of a 16 day immersion program. Once again, we jumped in and worked 16 hour days to make sure she could get care. Since we do so much ourselves to keep Heartwood afloat, she even came back to work 5 days later to lecture and teach philosophy.

It has always been my Mother’s goal to work hard to provide for her family, her staff and others in the community. She’s one of the most generous and fair people I’ve ever met.

And now, with this blow from Hurricane Ian, we have what we expect to be about $30,000 in clean up costs on the grounds. None of which will be covered by insurance. I’m 30 weeks pregnant and unable to haul logs, readying for my maternity leave. We’re all hoping my mother remembers she is still healing from a major heart attack and stays calm and doesn’t over work in the garden during clean up.

We have been overwhelmed with love and support from dozens of local students showing up with rakes and gloves and family members to help clean up and we are so grateful.

We have been blessed with a tree company from Illinois who happened to be looking to help on Waterline Rd and was able to do the major work to make us functional again so we can run our business and keep moving forward as planned.

Now, we are looking at a total of over $30,000 in bills for this tree removal just so that we can drive onto and walk through the property and so FPL can restore our severed power line.

I am aware that so many of our students live far away from Heartwood and have been unable to help and wanting to do something. So here’s something you may be able to do.

Any amount helps Heartwood bounce back.

Any amount provides the relief we need to continue on with this most recent obstacle in a long line of many.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart ♥️