The Faces of East Sacramento tells the story of our community through the people who live here and know it best - one face, one voice at a time.
Meet Amy Linsley! Amy and her husband live in East Sac, right within walking distance of McKinley Park. She is the founder of Free Yoga Sacramento, a community resource for people interested in finding free and donation-based yoga classes. In addition to her passion for yoga and meditation, Amy enjoys her backyard garden filled with citrus trees, grapevines, pomegranates and a vegetable garden. Although COVID threw a bit of a wrench in their original honeymoon plans, in 2022 they are planning a second wedding reception, (hopefully) to be followed by their dream honeymoon to New Zealand.
Question: How long have you lived in East Sacramento?Answer: “Just over two years; I moved here in October 2019.”
Q: What attracted you to East Sac?A: “My husband owned a house here [and] I moved in with him… I always wanted to live in East Sac because I just liked the area, and Yoga in the Park is my favorite thing to do. It’s not happening much right now because of the pandemic, but it’s really nice to be within walking distance [of McKinley Park]. Even if it’s not for yoga, I enjoy walking with a friend around the park.”
Q: What keeps you here?A: “I really like the neighbors, and a lot of them have small businesses, like Lizzie’s Bakehouse, which sells bread. And she lives pretty close to me, so I can go pick up fresh bread on Sundays from her. And my other neighbor, Monica, does the Balance Within business, and she has a little farm stand where she [sells] little fruits and vegetables… and she sells other products that she makes, like essential oil products; there’s just so many amazing small businesses out of people’s homes that I’ve really connected with in my neighborhood that are within walking distance of me. And I just think that everyone’s really friendly, and I like that other little businesses are in walking distance; Temple Coffee is very close to me and I can walk there. And I have a few friends that I can walk around the neighborhood with, and I just love the big trees, and the feel of an older neighborhood.”
Q: What do you do for work? A: “I am an accreditation director for AIRS (the Alliance for Information and Referral Services), but I also teach Yoga Nidra classes, which are donation-based, as well as private sessions, which are a set fee. And as a side project I started Free Yoga Sacramento.”
Q: So what exactly is Free Yoga Sacramento, and what led you to start it?“Basically I started it just, kind of for myself a long time ago. I didn’t have a lot of money at the time and I couldn’t afford yoga, just because it’s so expensive; it’s usually about a hundred dollars a month if you want to buy a membership, you know, to a studio. So I just started a list, and I shared it with some family and friends, and it was helpful for them. And then I put it onto a Google sheet and it wasn’t on a website yet but I would share it on the Sacramento Yoga Community Facebook page… So I would just share it on there every few months, and people would be interested in it and really like it. I always wanted to get it on a website so I could reach more people with it, but I didn’t know how to do it, and it was a lot of money to spend to hire a web designer to create the website… But I finally found someone who was just starting out… and the community really rallied and donated money… My website developer told me, you know, if you build this, people will support you, and people will donate, and I thought, I don’t know if they will, like I felt unsure about it, but they did! People just donated, people I didn’t even know, and friends and family…
I paid some money out of my own pocket for it; I don’t get enough donations to cover all of it, but I get donations to cover quite a bit of it… So I don’t take any of the money for myself, I just volunteer and do it because I know yoga and meditation is really important for my own well-being. So I’ve seen how much it’s helped me, so I want it to be accessible for everyone, even if they don’t have a lot of money, or, even if they do have money and they just want to try yoga for free to check it out. I just wanted to make it more accessible, and it’s really been amazing. I don’t get a lot of feedback from people but every once in a while I’ll hear a story of like, ‘Okay, it really helped me a lot.’ Or I met one lady recently, she had been taking classes on my website for a few years, and now she‘s a yoga teacher herself, and so that was like the best story. So she teaches a donation-based free class now, and it’s on my website so I was like, that’s really awesome.”
Q: Awesome indeed. Aside from yoga, what do you like to do for fun?A: “Travel and hiking. [Carmel] was where we went for our honeymoon and we mostly hiked in Big Sur State Park; in Big Sur there's a lot of hikes along the coast, and my other favorite place to hike is in Auburn along the confluence. There’s a lot of good trails; the Quarry Trail and the Clementine Trail are two of my favorite local trails. I hike all over the Tahoe area, or Desolation Wilderness up Highway 50.”
Q: Do you have a favorite restaurant in East Sac? If so, what is it, and what’s good there?A: “Joon Market. Their crispy chicken sandwich, for lunch, is really good. I usually get their crispy potato wedges with their garlic aioli sauce on the side. I usually get those two things for lunch; it’s really good. Their menu changes every week locally with whatever’s in season, but I’ve always seen that item. Those two items are always on there, and then many of the other things usually change with the seasons.”
Community Resources and Businesses Mentioned by Amy:Amy Fish Yoga Nidra - Home | FacebookFree Yoga Sacramento Free Yoga Sacramento (@freeyogasacramento) • Instagram photos and videos Yoga in the Park - Home | Facebook Joon MarketLizzy's BakehouseTemple Coffee Roasters Balance Within