Free first, always
Seventy-eight percent of our gatherings cost nothing to attend. The rest slide down to zero on request, without a form, a means test or a conversation about why.
About us
Eleven people on a lawn, and what came after
Strength In The City runs free wellness gatherings in public places across Chicago, Charlotte and Denver, and trains the people who lead them. Here is who does the work, what it has added up to, and who pays for it.
Our mission
We put free wellness gatherings in public places, and we train the people who lead them, so that a person can walk into a city knowing nobody and walk out three months later with somewhere to be on a Saturday.
What we hold to
Six things we do not compromise on
These are operating rules rather than aspirations. Every one of them costs us something, and we have kept them anyway.
Public places, on purpose
We teach on lawns, in parks and in borrowed halls rather than behind a membership desk. A studio filters people out before they reach the door. A park does not.
The welcome is the work
Anyone can programme a class. The thing that decides whether somebody comes back is the four minutes before it starts, so that is where we put our volunteers.
Built to be handed over
Every gathering we start is designed to survive the person who started it. We certify locals, we give them the permits, and we get out of the way.
We do not touch people
No hands-on adjustments, anywhere, from anyone we certify. It costs us a little precision in the poses and it buys back a room where everybody can relax.
Say the number out loud
Attendance, costs, what an instructor is paid and what a scholarship is worth are all published. If we will not print a number, we should not be running the programme.
Leadership
The four people who run this
Between them they hold the schedule, the certification programme, the partnerships and the permits across three cities. All four still teach.
Imani Brooks
Founder and executive director
Chicago
Imani put eleven people on a lawn at Montrose Point in 2019 after a year of being new in a city and finding nowhere to simply turn up. She spent the decade before that in public health commissioning, which is where the insistence on publishing our numbers comes from. She still teaches the first Saturday of every month.
Daniel Reyes
Director of city programs
Charlotte
Daniel runs the schedule across all three cities, which mostly means permits, park departments and the unglamorous business of making a free class legal. He opened Charlotte in 2022 out of a spare room and a spreadsheet, and he is the reason our outdoor sessions cost attendees nothing.
Priya Raman
Head of the Strength Collective
Denver
Priya built the certification programme from a single weekend workshop into a two hundred and thirty hour curriculum, and has now taken two hundred and fourteen instructors through it. She moved to Denver in 2024 to open the city and stayed to run the front range programme herself.
Andre Whitfield
Director of community health and partnerships
Chicago
Andre came from fourteen years in community clinics and holds the relationships with the forty-six organizations that host, fund and staff our gatherings. He also runs the referral pathway, which sends patients from partner clinics into our free Saturday sessions and back again.
Impact
The numbers, published
A free programme paid for by other people should be legible to the people who turn up. So we print the attendance, the reach and the share that costs nothing.
- People in the community4,200 in Chicago, 2,600 in Charlotte and 1,700 in Denver.
- 8,500
- Gatherings held since 2019From eleven people on one lawn to thirty gatherings every month.
- 1,480
- Of gatherings are freeThe remaining 22% slide down to zero on request, no questions asked.
- 78%
- Instructors certifiedSince 2023, of whom 91 now teach on our community schedule.
- 214
- Partner organizations18 in Chicago, 16 in Charlotte and 12 in Denver.
- 46
- Festival attendees in 20251,050 on Northerly Island and 640 at Camp North End.
- 1,690
Partnerships
Who makes it possible
Four kinds of partnership add up to the 46 organizations behind the schedule: the ones who waive the permits, lend the rooms, staff the clinics and feed the volunteers.
11 organizations
Public space partners
Parks departments and space alliances across the three cities who waive permit fees so our outdoor gatherings can stay free.
17 organizations
Venue partners
Studios, halls and converted works that give us their rooms at cost through the winter months.
9 organizations
Health partners
Clinics that staff our festivals and refer patients into our free sessions when what they need is other people.
9 organizations
Food and business partners
Independent kitchens and businesses that feed our volunteers and trade at every festival we run.
Timeline
How we got here
From one lawn in Chicago to thirty gatherings a month across three cities.
2019
Eleven people on a lawn at Montrose Point, Chicago.
2021
The first Lakefront Wellness Festival, 180 attendees on one stage.
2022
Charlotte opens with a single Saturday class in Freedom Park.
2023
The Strength Collective certifies its first cohort of 22 instructors.
2024
Denver launches in March with nine people at City Park.
2025
Two festivals in one season, 1,690 attendees between them.
2026
Thirty gatherings a month across three cities.
Get in touch
Talk to us
If you want to host a gathering, offer a space, or simply ask what happens at one of these, send a message and a person will reply.