Yew Mountain Center offers virtual wellness and wildflowers April 16th – 18th

In a normal year, this week the Yew Mountain Center in Hillsboro, WV would be getting ready to welcome visitors to enjoy several days of wellness, wildflowers and long walks in the beautiful woodlands surrounding the center, according to Program Assistant Marlyn McClendon.

“Originally, we had planned a four-day wellness event in which we were going to offer a variety of different wellness practices that people could learn about from forest bathing to meditation and yoga, various [and] different types of yoga all kind of sources from local teachers.”

Two signature events at the Yew were planned for this Saturday.

“On Saturday we were going to interject our annual Wildflower Festival which is kind of like one of our opening programs that we have every year,” said Marlyn. “And usually during the Wildflower Festival we have our Ramp 5K, a “rugged” 5K through our woods.”

Other events include plant sales, a ramp lunch and arts and crafts for the kids.  However, since this is not a normal year, the Yew has had to rethink how to connect with those who could really use a break from the stress of living under a pandemic.

“We are shifting gears to offer the same kind of things almost, but just virtually through Zoom and Facebook Live, so we’ll still have meditation and yoga and then on Saturday we’ll have a little Forest Farming talk and we’ll do a wildflower walk with our Iphones.”

You can find a schedule of events at their website, yew mountain dot org.

“On the website, you can see the schedule and whichever class you’d like to participate in which are all donation based, you can click the link and it will take you to register for that class.  I think you need to have a Zoom account.”

Marlyn says they are also hoping to have Facebook Live presentations of the classes.   She says they don’t have a suggested donation amount.  Whatever donations they do get will go mostly to the instructors with any remainder going back to the non-profit center itself.  She says other events planned for May and throughout the summer and fall, are still on the schedule.

“Yeah, we still have all our programs on the schedule for right now.  We just aren’t sure how they’re going to pan out yet.  I think because most of the things we’re hosting from our facility can wait a little bit more last minute than maybe if we had events somewhere else.” The virtual classes at the Yew Mountain Center will be offered on Thursday April 16th through Saturday April 18th.  You’ll find more information at their website, yew mountain dot org or by phone at 304-653-4079.  

Story By

Heather Niday

Heather is our Program Director and Traffic Manager. She started with Allegheny Mountain Radio as a volunteer deejay. She then joined the AMR staff in February of 2007. Heather grew up in the Richmond, Virginia, area and now lives in Arbovale, West Virginia with her husband Chuck. Heather is a wonderful flute player, and choir director for Arbovale UMC. You can hear Heather along with Chuck on Tuesday nights from 6 to 8pm as they host two hours of jazz on Something Different.

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