Merrill S. Woodriff

Merrill Woodriff joined the Foundation board in 2012.

Woodriff is co-director of Bend Yoga Charlottesville. She has always loved working with children. She graduated from the School of Education in 1998 with a master’s degree in elementary education and moved to Europe to teach students from diverse backgrounds at the Munich International School. After two years abroad, Woodriff returned to the States and continued to teach at independent schools in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and most recently Charlottesville.

Woodriff started practicing yoga while living in San Francisco in 2002. When vacationing at the beach three years ago, she was practicing yoga in the sand when her cousin’s child, who was age six at the time, asked her what she was doing. Woodriff told the child she was doing the eagle pose and asked her to join in. The child loved the challenge and the novelty of the eagle pose and was quickly hungry for more. That day on the beach, Woodriff realized that she could integrate the two things she was most passionate about in life: children and yoga.