Jess Chisholm
Founder
M.Ed, RYT200, Certified Children’s Yoga Instructor
An Early Childhood Educator and yogi, Jess founded YFG with a clear mission: to help school communities prioritize wellness, compassion, and social-emotional learning.
Jess’ first introduction to mindfulness and meditation was during high school when she worked with Dr. Glen Kessler of Next Level Performance to ease performance anxiety during basketball season. Noticing the profound effects of simply stopping to breathe deeply, Jess began her personal practice of meditation and yoga. It wasn’t until years later while teaching Pre-K that Jess saw how incredibly impactful these practices are to children’s development and sense of self.
After completing her 200 hour yoga teacher training in Boston, Jess traveled to Thailand and studied with the monks of Wat Pa Sukato and children’s meditation teachers of Plum Village to deepen her understanding of how to best integrate these ancient practices in the modern Western classroom.
Combining her passions of education and yoga, Jess started YFG and has been blown away by all the continued support, love, and hard-work that school communities are putting towards the wellbeing of students and teachers. She can’t wait to continue growing the team and connecting with more beautiful people.
Jackie Ruane
Development & Client Relations
BSBA, RYT200
Jackie Ruane is someone who loves to feel good and help others do the same! She got into practicing and teaching yoga because it’s pretty much doing exactly that—feeling good, and helping others feel good.
A few years ago Jackie searched ‘yoga’ into Youtube, and soon enough it became a daily practice for her. After having her mind blown with how much yoga improved her life, she decided to become a yoga teacher. She enrolled into a 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training at Full Circle Yoga School. The training was led by the creator of Functional Power Yoga, Pablo Lucero.
A year after the training, she graduated from High Point University with a Business Administration degree. She’s a total people-person, so she spent the majority of her college years fascinated with sales. This brought her to begin her sales career at a health insurance brokerage. It was quickly noticed how her yoga practice optimized her mindset, which increased her sales success. After realizing how much yoga boosted her success and happiness, she decided to find a career that spreads yoga on a greater level.
This is when she became a part of the YFG (dream) team. She now connects with schools to find the best-fitting yoga programs and workshops for each community. It makes her beyond happy to meet and create real relationships with the communities around her!
EJ Albin
Curriculum Development
M.Ed
EJ Albin is a second grade teacher at Ivan G. Smith Elementary School in Danvers, MA and holds a Master’s Degree in Education Teacher Leadership with a concentration on Literacy. While teaching toddlers in the beginning of her career, EJ fell in love with using yoga and meditation as tools to help children. She views yoga and mindfulness techniques as incredibly important parts of education and knowing one's self. Her classroom practices yoga on a weekly basis and her personal yoga and meditation practice continues to evolve. EJ is deeply committed to social justice issues and works hard to help foster learners who are advocates and allies for all.
She is thrilled to be part of Yoga for Good with her dear friend and former colleague Jess and connect with other educators. She hopes to partner with many school communities to create developmentally appropriate programming and inspire growth and compassion.