10News Leadership Award Winners Frank And Serpil Iszak

10News honors Frank and Serpil Iszak for co-founding the non-profit organization Silver Age Yoga Group which provides free yoga classes to low income seniors in the San Diego community.

Frank and Serpil want to help improve the lives of senior citizens through health enhancing yoga classes. When they first had the idea, Frank presented it to a yoga Education Society Meeting (San Diego County’s Yoga Teachers Association.) where several of the teachers enthusiastically embraced the idea and asked to be included in the couple’s special efforts. Frank and Serpil have since trained over 60 yoga teachers in San Diego in geriatric science-based yoga to meet the special needs of their senior citizens. The seniors are never charged for the classes. The participants feel more active and have an improved sense of well being after the class. Depression is also alleviated through the classes. So far over 4,000 weekly classes have been delivered at 23 sites in San Diego since the start of this program four years ago.

Frank and Serpil make sure that the teachers are paid from donations received to support the program. They however, have never received compensation for their countless hours of teaching, fundraising and developing of training programs. Despite recent shoulder surgery, Frank continues to drive himself to many different locations to make presentations whenever he is asked. In order to support the couple as well as Frank’s vision to better the lives of senior citizens Serpil works up to seven days a week.

Frank and Serpil are constantly looking for ways to expand their program. In fact they have recently developed an Adopt-A-Center program where a local business can sponsor a senior yoga site. Their goal is to double the number of yoga sites in San Diego by December 2007.

For more information, please contact Silver Age Yoga Group at 858-693-3110 or visit www.SILVERAGEYOGA.org.