Thank you, NYC, for 25 incredible years.

This spring, Lineage’s board of directors made the painstaking decision to wind down our programming on August 30, 2024 and close the organization’s doors this fall. This is a sad and complex transition for our team, past and present, who breathed life into Lineage’s programs for the last 25+ years. To read the letter sent to Lineage’s community from Executive Director, Jessica Mingus, click here.

All of us at Lineage care deeply about the partnerships we’ve built and remain committed to our collective work in the world.

Please visit “Our Team” to learn more about our team members’ continued work and contact them about future collaborations.

Below, participants in our closing circle shared how Lineage touched their lives.

Founded in 1999, Lineage Project teaches trauma-sensitive mindfulness to young people and adult staff inside NYC’s criminal legal, foster care, education, shelter, immigration, psychiatric, and school suspension systems—fostering embodied awareness and collective care, and breaking down race/class barriers to mindfulness education.

Our earliest programs, guided by an all-volunteer team, were with young people at Rikers Island. To our knowledge, this kind of programming had never been offered before. Gradually over time, Lineage expanded its partnerships and reach.

Lineage’s team has reached thousands of young people and adult staff across New York City.

As Lineage’s composition changed over time, our organizational culture did, too. Teachers, staff, board members, and participants in our events and trainings called attention to the organization’s growing edges, contradictions, and relational/structural racialized harm that required repair. The essential conversations that emerged informed the evolution of our collective storytelling, teaching approach, curriculum, staff development, and ways of working together.

While Lineage will no longer “be” an organization, the precious teachings and wisdom traditions we had the privilege to share live on. Thankfully, several of Lineage’s programs will continue after the organization is formally dissolved.

Click here to learn more about the Lineage team, their ongoing work, and stay connected.