The Center – 25 years of uniting mind, body and spirit

Cheryl Hentz

Contributor

September 22, 2025

FOND DU LAC – Twenty-five years ago, Greg Hermann said retired Marian University theology professor Michael Ketterhagen used a thesis he wrote decades earlier to create The Fond du Lac Center for Spirituality and Healing.  

“His intent in his dissertation was to create a space that’s safe for the expression of all spiritual practices and to provide a holistic health environment for any interested people,” Hermann – past board member for The Center and current yoga and meditation instructor – said. 

Unfortunately, Hermann said Ketterhagen passed away last December – approximately nine months before his nonprofit turned 25 years old.

Known today as The Center – Uniting Mind, Body and Spirit, Director Lynette Duley said the facility offers a wide variety of holistic services or therapies to work in conjunction with a client’s medical care.

“Our center has been very focused on yoga and what it has to offer, but we are very much into energy work… and the practitioners are conduits for energy,” Duley said. “We have many successful cases where individuals have done very well with these kinds of therapies.”  

Hermann said he is one of those cases. 

Several years ago, he said he was diagnosed with a kidney stone, and later, with kidney disease, and was also diagnosed with high blood pressure.

In response, Hermann said he and his wife intently began studying nutrition – adjusting their diet to include healthier options and integrating Western medicine with yoga and meditation. 

Over a seven-year period, Hermann said his numbers got to within a normal range, his medication use gradually decreased and his nephrologist released him from care because his conditions had improved so much.

“I did not ignore our Western practices, but I integrated those with dietary changes and my spiritual expression into the healing of my kidneys,” he said.

Duley said she considers everything they offer at The Center as complementary therapies – something beyond what the current medical world is offering. 

“We work with people as a whole, and not as a disease or symptom,” she said. “We do have an intent, a goal, with each session. But people benefit beyond the intent.” 

When Ketterhagen opened The Center 25 years ago, Hermann said it was because he cared about people. 

“We want to continue his legacy, but we also want to go a little bit beyond that and really welcome our community in and be more involved,” he said.

At one time, Hermann said The Center offered reflexology, massage therapy and art therapy.

“Some of those things aren’t offered today because we don’t have practitioners available to us to provide those therapies,” Hermann said.

However, Hermann said The Center has plenty of practitioners to do yoga, Reiki and healing touch.

“We’ve [also] done massage therapy on and off,” Duley said. “But you want a service that’s going to fit with your vision and mission, as well.”

Twenty-five years of growth

Duley said The Center provides the residents of the City of Fond du Lac and its neighboring towns with holistic and healthy yoga, meditation, Tai Chi, Ayurveda, Reiki and Healing Touch classes and services, among others.

“The variety of services we are able to offer, as well as [our collaboration] with a number of organizations within the community, is how we’ve grown,” she said.

Getting Ahead, Duley said, is one of many organizations The Center works with.

“Getting Ahead is part of the Katharine Drexel Solutions Center of Fond du Lac,” she said. “They help homeless individuals obtain the skills necessary to get back into the working world, get back into the social world and other things like that.”

Duley said The Center has also led yoga classes at ARYA, a new center in the community for women who are in recovery from substance or alcohol abuse.

Further, she said The Center has led a drumming circle at the Boys & Girls Club and yoga classes at the local YMCA and the Blandine House – a class AAA Community-Based Residential Treatment Center that serves adult male residents with alcohol and other drug abuse issues.

Duley said The Center has also worked with The Arc, which promotes and protects the human rights of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. 

“In the past, we provided different classes for them, including yoga, but currently what they want are sound baths and drumming,” she said. 

A change in mission, location

Hermann said The Center’s mission is what attracted him to work there in the first place.

However, he said the nonprofit’s mission has changed over time.

“Originally, the mission was to provide a safe space for people to express their spirituality to their own unique needs,” he said. “Right now, the mission reads ‘to empower our community to live a balanced life through dynamic programming and transformative services.’”

Part of the reason why Duley said The Center altered its mission was because they “wanted to be considered a center without walls.”

“We’re not just located at 96 S. National Ave. – we’re all over the place now,” she said. “We have classes at Marian University and there are a number of other places where we offer [services]. We work with everybody, just in different shapes, forms and manners…, [so] we didn’t want to be defined by a location.”

The Center’s location itself, Duley said, has also changed in its 25 years. 

It was originally located downtown at 74 S. Main St. – a place she said The Center called home for almost its entire existence.

However, Duley said that space offered much more room than they needed to provide The Center’s current services.

So, last year, she said they relocated to a smaller space – but after finding that space’s rent “cost-prohibitive” – moved again to 96 S. National Ave.

“One of our board members had been working with the new president at Marian University and the opportunity for us to rent some space – which is actually in a single-family home – from Marian came about,” she said. “So, this last move allows us to promote that partnership, but at the same time also increases our accessibility.” 

Throughout The Center’s existence, Duley said The Congregation of the Sisters of St. Agnes has been both spiritual and financial supporters – with Sr. Donna Innes, a professor at Marian University and a member of the Sisters of St. Agnes, currently serving on The Center’s board of directors.  

“We have also had sisters who do projects or other things for The Center,” she said. “We have one sister still with us who actually does programs in the community because of the skillset that she has.”

Focus on breath work

The cornerstone of everything The Center does, Hermann said, is breathing – because when someone can control their breathing, they can feel other things slip away.

“We try in every program we do, every workshop that we do, every class that we have, to get people focused on their breathing, because we want them here and present in whatever they’re participating in,” he said. 

The breath work and developing a practice of being able to breathe, Hermann said, is the start of healing, no matter what someone is doing. 

“You can feel at ease when your breathing is under control,” he said. “It’s quiet, it’s deep, it’s smooth, it’s continuous – and that’s the breath I look to integrate into yoga poses.”

Though yoga plays a prominent role at The Center, Hermann said it is not the sole focus.

“We talk about [a person’s] entire lifestyle, about nutrition, about how the environment affects us, and we talk about a yoga-like lifestyle,” he said. “But, we do things that have many benefits and help people a lot at the same time… We like to [take] a comprehensive approach.” 

Through a combination of different methods, Hermann said The Center helps individuals take an active role in their healing. 

“We have multiple modalities and things we can do, but we don’t fix people,” he said. “We utilize universal energy and help them use their own energy, their own focus and [a] commitment to help them get better.”

The Center also has outreach programs, Duley said – offering free services to military veterans, people with addictions and those who are living in shelters.

“Every person has needs, and I feel the way The Center wants to give to the community is by helping people in any way we can with the tools we have available,” she said. “That’s what The Center – Uniting Mind, Body and Spirit is all about. We care about our community. We’re not out to make millions of dollars; we’re out to help people.”