Brentwood yoga class raises funds for CHAMP assistance dogs

A gentle yoga class in Brentwood will put two therapy dogs in the studio and send the proceeds to a much bigger mission: CHAMP Assistance Dogs’ work training and placing service dogs for people with disabilities. Joy of Yoga’s beginner-friendly session, Gentle Yoga with Therapy Dogs, is set for Saturday, August 22, 2026, from 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. at 8918 Manchester Road, and Alicia Delaney will lead the class.

The setup is meant to feel welcoming from the first mat roll-out. Joy of Yoga is offering the class on a donation basis, and the event is explicitly tied to CHAMP Assistance Dogs, the greater St. Louis-area organization that provides specially trained service dogs free of charge to children, adults and veterans with disabilities. In other words, the hour and a half in Brentwood is not just a novelty dog yoga session. It is a direct fundraising bridge between a casual, low-pressure class and a service-dog pipeline that reaches far beyond the studio.

That pipeline is already substantial. CHAMP says it has more than 90 therapy-dog teams visiting more than 80 locations, and those teams visited more than 31,000 people in 2019. Its therapy-dog work can turn up in hospitals, hospices, nursing homes, adult day cares, homeless programs, the USO, libraries, schools, colleges and other public settings, which gives the Brentwood fundraiser an unusually clear afterlife: the money collected at Joy of Yoga helps support dogs that keep showing up in all kinds of community spaces.

The event also serves as an entry point for people who want to do more than drop in for class. CHAMP says its dogs in training have full public access rights in Missouri, and it takes about 2 to 2.5 years to train an assistance or facility dog. The organization also says donations support its Therapy Dog, Education and Prison Programs, including work with the Federal Bureau of Prisons at Greenville Camp in Illinois. CHAMP representatives are expected to be on-site to answer questions and talk about volunteer roles such as puppy raising and helping.

Joy of Yoga’s own lineup fits the same community-minded lane. The studio describes itself as warm and welcoming, with classes that include gentle, chair, senior, restorative, prenatal, meditation and donation-based yoga. In Brentwood, that makes the formula simple: one beginner-friendly class, two therapy dogs, and a donation stream aimed squarely at the next generation of working dogs.