Nonprofit Cultivate Yoga opens 3rd studio with free classes in Collinwood

Cultivate Yoga says more than 31 million breaths were taken within their Lakewood and Avon studios in 2025. Expect even more tallied breaths in 2026 with Cultivate running its first class at its newest location in Collinwood on Waterloo Road. Joining the Pop Life Cleveland space, Cultivate Yoga Waterloo is open for business, offering classes to anyone and everyone — regardless of if they can pay or not.

First Class in a New Space

Even on a chilly Jan. 1, the several inches of snow covering the roads didn’t stop more than 20 yogis from traveling to Cultivate Yoga’s new space. Right inside the doors of the Pop Life building, participants slipped off their shoes and went up the stairs where they found a dedicated space for their personal items — as well as complimentary yoga mats. Upon entering the yoga studio, they left a colorful and brightly lit room and stepped into an oasis of peace and serenity. The space is warm and dimly lit, with shades drawn to keep out the sun shining through the large windows facing Waterloo Road. The subtle decorations — delicate wind chimes and a strip of purple LED lights lining the entire frame of the room — only add to the calming ambience.

Evan Scharfeld, founder of Cultivate Yoga, weaves between students and searches for those he could offer a few moments of hands-on assistance. Every student looks committed to the practice, and at ease in the space. The class ends with everyone seated in an upright position, closing with a collective and communal “om.”

Following the Yogi Path

Scharfeld says he was working as an employee of Hyland Software in Westlake in 2014 when he discovered a newfound passion for yoga. He had his first yoga class through Hyland’s employee wellness program, and the instructor was his work colleague Colleen Alber — someone who is now a Cultivate Yoga board member.

“We would literally push the tables and chairs aside and put our mats down. Many of us still had kids in the daycare, so this was perfect. We could keep them in daycare and do yoga at a time in my life when I was a new parent and working and trying to balance all the things,” Alber says. “I connected with Evan, and so many great people who are still involved in our Cultivate Yoga community today as students, as donors, as teachers and as board members. We do have a little Hyland to thank, but really all the thanks goes to Evan.”

Scharfeld says, even with his good job at Hyland as a software tester, he learned that yoga was financially inaccessible for lots of people. This became his catalyst for starting Cultivate Yoga.

“The practice itself was so beneficial to me and things I was going through in my own personal life that I felt like it needed to be available for anybody and everybody,” he says.

Scharfeld says he and Alber, as well as other coworkers from Hyland, set out to partner with community centers and churches as locations to host yoga classes. In late 2019, Scharfeld had the opportunity to purchase his first yoga studio — a building on Ridgeland Drive in Avon that housed 3 Sisters Yoga + Fitness. Alber says Scharfeld used his own money to purchase the yoga studio.

“I knew right away that it was just meant to be,” Scharfeld says. “In 2017, I started Cultivate Yoga. 2019 is when the studio idea first came around, and then we transitioned to the actual studio in 2020.”

A Nonprofit Yoga Model

Alber says the original vision for Cultivate Yoga was to establish a nonprofit and have a for-profit studio generating the revenue to pay teachers and buy equipment. Then, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Scharfeld says after just two weeks of operation as Cultivate Yoga — Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine shut down all fitness centers. With the limited amount of time the nonprofit was in operation at the time, the Cultivate Yoga studio didn’t qualify for as much government assistance as other small businesses.

“Evan had the bold idea and vision to say, ‘Let’s just make our studio also nonprofit.’ That opened up whole new revenue streams for us. It was a different model and a different mindset, which has been a blessing and also a curse,” Alber says.

Alber says there are a lot of people that visit Cultivate Yoga for the free yoga, even if they may be able to spare a few dollars. In contrast, offering free yoga classes has motivated Cultivate Yoga to seek corporate matching and partnerships with other organizations that believe in the nonprofit’s mission — to provide yoga and other wellness services to everyone in the community, regardless of social status, physical ability or financial standing.

“We have dreams of applying for grants and all kinds of things. We haven’t really dabbled in much of that,” Alber says. “Most of our funds come from the people that practice and participate in our community. We really are a self-sustaining donation model. That’s what keeps our two, now three, studios thriving — the people that come and take yoga.”

The Cultivate Yoga website states that all of the nonprofits’ services “are gift-based and are ultimately FREE-if-you-need-them-to-be.” According to the nonprofit’s newsletter, distributed on January 1, Cultivate Yoga held more than 2,000 classes and raised more than $330,000 in gift-based donations in 2025.

Movin’ On Up … to the East Side

Scharfeld says his connection with Pop Life began in 2019 when he met the lifestyle center’s original owner, Joda Mueller, who passed away in 2021. Scharfeld says the collaboration between Cultivate Yoga and Pop Life truly began when the center’s current owners, Elizabeth “Biz” Rogers and her sister Joan Rogers, approached Evan about six months ago.

“It’s cool because [Biz and Joan] didn’t know Joda, the original owner [of Pop Life], but they have a very similar vision of wanting to build a wellness community,” he says. “They approached us and they said, ‘We love what you’re doing. We really want yoga to be a part of what’s happening at Pop Life.’ And, they asked if we would be interested in taking over the yoga program.”

Scharfeld says Cultivate Yoga was already loosely throwing around the idea of a third studio, possibly in the Tremont or Ohio City area. He says the collaboration with Pop Life, “feels like it was meant to be for years and years.”

Biz Rogers, who was also a participant in the Jan. 1 class, says Cultivate Yoga was a studio she kept hearing about from the community, and then it began to come up for her while she was meditating.

“The fact that it was health and wellness for all, wanting to be affordable for the community, and wanting to actually practice what you preach in yoga and do more than just the hourly routine that we do — it was just something that was really compelling to me,” she says.

Rogers says she set up a meeting with Scharfeld, and their conversation evolved into Cultivate Yoga offering classes in the Pop Life space.

“We have these beautiful spaces and we love what they do. It’s just one of those things where it was a perfect synchronicity and it ended up coming to fruition,” she says.

Yoga, Community and Purpose

Alber says Cultivate Yoga’s main offerings include several variations of yoga, breath work and sound healing. Practitioners can register for everything from a gentle flow yoga session, to hot yoga, to a more advanced flow called Jivamukti. Cultivate Yoga also offers workshops, monthly events and a 200-hour yoga teacher training.

Scharfeld says Cultivate Yoga Waterloo’s grand opening party is set for Jan. 23. He is working with Pop Life to coordinate catering from the center’s Nourish Café, and hopes that bringing regular yoga classes into the space will help Pop Life become a destination spot in Cleveland.

“I think the opportunity in Waterloo and Collinwood is to increase our diversity footprint overall,” he says. “We’re trying to bring in teachers that represent a wider community and students hopefully will follow suit. It feels more well rounded now with these three studios. That’s our hope out there.”

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Interested in attending the Cultivate Yoga Waterloo Grand Opening Party on Jan. 23, or looking to register for a yoga class? Download the MINDBODY app on your mobile device or visit the MINDBODY website to sign up.

Those interested in donating to Cultivate Yoga or learning how donations support the organization can visit cultivateyoga.org/donation.

For more general information about Cultivate Yoga, visit the nonprofit’s website.