Goats roamed a fenced in area next to the Cracker House Saturday morning and stopped to get food or head scratches from people participating in a beginner yoga class.

More than 50 people attended “Goat Yoga” Saturday morning led by Emily Fite of The Yoga Room. The event was a fundraiser for the Cracker House renovation in St. Joseph. 

Leah Swindler is the President of the Cracker House Project, which is a project dedicated to restoring the house at 914 Main Street once occupied by Frank L. Sommer, the inventor of the saltine cracker. 

Swindler said the idea for putting on a “goat yoga” class came from YouTube. 

“Someone sent me a YouTube video of this person doing goat yoga as a thing,” Swindler said. “I figured, well, I have goats, I know people that teach yoga and we have a big flat lot here, why don’t we do goat yoga? And I think it was really successful.” 

Swindler said “Goat Yoga” raised more than $500. Swindler said funds raised will go toward paying a mason to fix damage on the east wall of the Cracker House. 

“The next plan is to get the mason to finish tuckpointing all the way around the top and get our donated trusses put on, then we’ll get a new roof on after that,” Swindler said. “So we’re almost there, almost to the tipping point.” 

Yoga Instructor Emily Fite said it’s the first time she’s been a part of “Goat Yoga.” 

“I had heard about it and I kind of giggled about it, I thought, ‘Well that’s kind of a crazy thing,’ but, you know, it’s therapeutic on its own level. You can practice yoga in so many ways whether it’s just laughter… it can just be the breathing part of the practice, it can be just the physical part of the practice, it can be the nourishing spiritual part of the practice,” Fite said. “So when you come to something like this where you can add that element of extra fun and of connection and bonding with God’s creation, then it is just a super fun experience.”

For more information, visit the Cracker House Project on Facebook.