Below is a list of New Perennials partners who gather on Zoom on the fourth Friday of each month sharing stories, ideas, practices, both new and old, to support each other's work. It has been helpful during these emergent times to hold this safe space on Zoom to come together. If you'd like to connect, please contact Nadine to get involved. 

​Marian Bouchard

Marian Bouchard, MD is a family physician who has been deeply embedded in the Bristol, VT community for more than 25 years. She is Board Certified in Family Medicine and a member of the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP).  She also has an interest in Integrative Medicine and is a Diplomate of the American Board of Integrative and Holistic Physicians (ABIHM). Dr. Bouchard did her residency training at Highland Hospital and the University of Rochester, just before she arrived in Bristol in September of 1993.  She obtained her medical degree from McGill University Faculty of Medicine, and an AB in Biology from Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges. Dr. Bouchard is passionate about primary care and enjoys teaching.  She has been involved with UVM Medical School, offering rotations for medical students, and Middlebury College, offering "Jan Plan" programs and as a community partner in Middlebury's New Perennial Project. She is the mother of two teenagers, and enjoys an active life skiing, cycling, gardening as well as exploring Vermont and the surrounding mountains and waters by hiking, canoeing and camping.  In her free time she dreams about a sustainable world.

Joshin Byrne

Sensei Joshin is a Zen priest and teacher and the founder of Bread Loaf Mountain Zen Community near Middlebury Vermont, which started in 2017. Bread Loaf Mountain Zen Community offers a spiritual home to a global community of socially-engaged Buddhist practitioners who are conducting humanitarian, peace-building, social action and service projects based on the Zen Peacemakers’ Three Tenets of Not Knowing, Bearing Witness and Taking Action. Joshin maintains a core practice of bearing witness to homelessness and offers street plunges (periods of voluntary homelessness) in cities around the country, and frequently teaches at the intersection of Dharma, social suffering, and our complicated relationship to money. Professionally, Joshin spent much of his career working for social change nonprofits providing executive leadership in the areas of AIDS and HIV prevention and community-engaged philanthropy. In addition to being the guiding teacher at Bread Loaf Mountain Zen Community, he is actively involved in the inter-spiritual New Monastic movement, and serves as an affiliate chaplain at Middlebury College.
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Don Chatfield

Rev. Dr. Don Chatfield is an interfaith minister with a history of leading spiritual communities and nonprofit organizations. Don holds a Master of Divinity degree, a Master’s degree in Land Use and the Environment, a Master’s degree in Counseling, and a Ph.D. in Human and Organizational Development. Prior to coming to All Souls, Don was the Executive Director of the Osage Forest of Peace, a contemplative interspiritual retreat center near Tulsa. At the Forest of Peace, Don launched a new School of Spiritual Direction and successfully hosted international interspiritual dialogues in partnership with the Charis Foundation for New Monasticism and InterSpirituality. Don’s previous experience includes working as Chief Operating Officer at the Sonoran Institute, a nonprofit environmental organization in the Western United States, and as the Executive Director of a nonprofit agency in Tucson dedicated to serving the needs of the homeless and working poor. Don served for a period as a therapist, working with those experiencing chemical addictions, sex and love addictions, and eating disorders. Don and his wife Karen have been married since 1987 and live in Shelburne. Don enjoys cross country and downhill skiing and bicycling.
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Cami Davis

Cameron Davis is a Senior Lecturer with the Department of Art & Art History, and Environmental Program Affiliate, at the University of Vermont, Burlington. She teaches Painting: Color & Invention, Drawing, Perspectives on Making, and courses on Art & Ecology. Davis graduated from the University of Vermont, BA, Studio Art; Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY, 1981, MFA Painting, post graduate studies in Art & Ecology, Schumacher College, UK. 1998, 2015. Davis’ exhibits and in collections nationally. www.camerondavisstudio.com

Judy Dow

For 35 years, Judy Dow has been a visionary mentor, braiding into all of her educational work core concepts of the Wabanaki people of New England, Respect, Reciprocity, Relationships, Responsibility, Reverence. Judy was the recipient of Vermont Governor’s Heritage Award for Outstanding Educator in 2004. She has taught students from pre-k to university and worked in community settings, reservations, prisons, and assisted living centers. Over the past few years she has taught in Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, Quebec, California, Illinois and many other places. Her current focus is reclaiming historical Indigenous stories, and mapping these stories to provide youth with another perspective of history, science and math. These tools will assist them in making meaning of their own lives.

Megan Giroux

Meghan Giroux is an experienced agroforestry researcher, practitioner, and technical service provider, as well as a seasoned land use planner with 15 years of experience growing perennial crops in both agricultural and nursery settings. Meghan has a Master’s of Science degree in Agroforestry and is a current Climate Adaptation Fellow. Through her company, Interlace Agroforestry LLC, and with funding from the USDA and the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets, Meghan is establishing a 23ha site with all five USDA-defined agroforestry represented. Additionally, Meghan has 25 years of experience in organizational development, project management, and marketing and outreach, having worked for many for-profit and nonprofit organizations

Sam Guarnaccia

Sam Guarnaccia, composer and classical guitarist—Master of Fine Arts, California Institute of the Arts; created and directed the guitar program of U-Denver’s renowned Lamont School of Music; instituted programs at Middlebury College and the University of Vermont, as Spanish scholar, performer, and teacher. He writes music almost exclusively in the service of supporting an evolved consciousness of humanity’s responsibility to, and interconnectedness with, the entire Earth Community, within the great scientific story of Cosmogenesis and the Epic of Evolution. His major works: 9 Peace Songs for Children; A Celtic Mass for Peace—with Celtic Spirituality author/poet John Philip Newell; the Emergent Universe Oratorio, world premiere with full orchestra, Cleveland, June 2017; O’er Every Living Thing; and the unpublished recent work, THRESHOLD—for chorus and orchestra, primarily without lyrics, expressing the voices of other-than-human Earth beings and life support systems—all owe a debt to the extraordinary cosmic vision of Teilhard de Chardin, Thomas Berry, and their understanding of the ‘undivided wholeness’ of matter, pattern, process, and spirit. With creative partner/producer Paula Guarnaccia—a near future performance with the Albany Pro Musica chorus/orchestra, at the iconic Troy Savings Bank Music Hall (TSBMH), New York, May, 2024. (SGM) www.samguarnaccia.com. 

Craig Maravich

Craig Maravich is the Co-Founder of Courageous Stage – a program that uses theatre arts to activate creativity in schools and communities across Vermont. He is a member of the faculty at The Bread Loaf School of English and Program Director of Bread Loaf’s Beyond the Page program. He has been a company member of the Bread Loaf Acting Ensemble since 2010. He has held teaching positions with Middlebury College Theatre Department, The University of Vermont, St. Michael’s College, Hofstra University, and The Academy for Visual and Performing Arts. His work as a teaching artist in Vermont includes the development of several classes and community initiatives with The Flynn Center for the Arts, The Town Hall Theater, and The Community Engagement Lab. As a practitioner, Craig’s work as an actor spans a professional career of 20 years and includes credits with leading theatres across the country. Craig is a recipient of a Vermont Thriving Communities Grant and the 2021 A. Bartlett Giamatti Award for Professional Development: Bringing creative practices into Bread Loaf and Middlebury classrooms and, through that work, cultivating inclusive learning and teaching environments. He holds an MFA from The Shakespeare Theatre’s Academy for Classical Acting/George Washington University

Nancy Milliken

​Nancy Winship Milliken, b. 1962, runs a place-based environmental art studio committed to building community through collaborative expressions of reverence for the land, humans, and animals. Milliken creates sculpture, installations, prints and photographic enactments concerning the health of the land and surrounding communities, aiding in the desired change for the (socio)environmental course of our society.

Mark Orten

Mark joined Middlebury College as the Dean of Spiritual and Religious Life and Director of the Scott Center in 2016. In his various roles he works to make spiritual and religious life relevant, central and visible on the campus. Supporting all mature religious expressions alongside worldviews of no faith is a life-long commitment, growing out of his own pluralistic journey. Mark has experience and various certifications working with intentional community among people of vast differences, employing interpersonal and inter-group dialogue models, implementing restorative practices for mediation and healing, as well as leading contemplative practices in several modalities (yoga, labyrinth, mindfulness meditation). Mark lives in Middlebury with his spouse and four children and enjoys meditation, reading, walking conversations, cooking, board games and keeping up with politics.

Corie Pierce

Corie Pierce is a farmer and educator. She is the owner and operator of Bread & Butter Farm in South Burlington/ Shelburne, Vermont. Bread & Butter Farm is a diversified farm where they produce  delicious and creamy raw milk, grass-fed beef, pastured raised pork, and vegetables, specializing in growing greens all winter long in unheated, passive solar greenhouses. Additionally, the farm is a community hub, hosting a winter concert series (Silo Sessions) led by her musician partner Chris Dorman and other educational workshops, internships, and programs. Leading up to farming full-time, Corie attended the UC Santa Cruz Apprenticeship and then worked at Michigan State University where she developed and launched the Organic Farming Certificate Program based at the Student Organic Farm. Most recently, she was the garden manager and Sustainable Agriculture faculty at Sterling College in Craftsbury Common, Vermont. Corie grew up in Exeter, New Hampshire, and got her farming start at Barker’s Farm in Stratham, New Hampshire. She loves basketball, yoga, biking, music, and spending time with her partner Chris Dorman and their children Henry and Samantha

Lindsay Pontius

Lindsay Pontius has been a professional actor, director, and teacher working both regionally and internationally for over 25 years. Pontius is Co-Founder and Director of Education of Courageous Stage, and also serves as Education Director of Town Hall Theater (THT) in Middlebury, Vermont. Over the last seven years, Pontius developed the THT Education Program, which annually serves more than 20 schools and a thousand children in Vermont. She has a doctorate in Leadership and Policy Studies from the University of Vermont.

Meghan Rigali

Meghan Rigali is a graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute with a Bachelor of Fine Art in Interdisciplinary Studies; teaching certificate from Upper Valley Educators Institute; licensed art educator K-12 in Vermont; Wilderness EMT from SOLO. Rigali danced in studios from San Francisco to New York, including Dartmouth College where she performed in Cistern: An Uncommon Ritual (2007). Work as a wilderness therapy guide with at-risk youth in Vermont transformed Rigali’s relationship to the natural world. She completed national service in Vermont Housing & Conservation Board AmeriCorps repairing and weatherizing low income homes with teams of volunteers  in 2013. As an interdisciplinary artist-educator, Rigali’s work is informed by practices in Tibetan Buddhism, Eco-psychology and contemporary wilderness rites in addition to being a certified yoga teacher. Her art work has been exhibited in the United States and Ethiopia.  Meghan Rigali is a Founding Core Teacher for Willowell’s New Roots Project and summer camp instructor offering original curriculum in the interdisciplinary arts, outdoor survival & medicine for youth, wildcraft, mind-body cultivation and holding council around the fire.

Matt Schlein

Matt Schlein M.A., M.S.W. , a former actor, writer, and storyteller, has spent the last twenty-two years as Founder and Director of both the Walden Project and The Willowell Foundation. The Walden Project takes students out of the traditional classroom and provides students grades 10-12 an interdisciplinary writing and environmental studies immersion in the woods of Vermont. The Willowell Foundation is a non-profit devoted to the consilience of arts, education, and the environment. In addition to artist residencies, summer camps, forest preschools, Willowell advocates for holistic solutions that connect people with the environment, themselves, and each other. The above mentioned work has been documented internationally in a range of newspapers, magazines, films, and radio stories, including NPR, Edutopia, and The Huffington Post.

Sister Gail Worcelo

Gail Worcelo is a Catholic sister and a co- founder along with Bernadette Bostwick and the late Passionist priest and cultural historian Thomas Berry, of Sisters of the Earth Community whose mission is: Honoring and Protecting Earth as a Single Sacred Community. Currently the community has a worldwide base of Partners in Mission, and sisters located in Vermont - USA, Indonesia and Kenya. Sr Gail travels around the world offering retreats and programs on the Spirituality of Earth and Cosmos, Interspecies Connectivity and our Place in the Story of the Universe. Sr Gail is a Liturgical dancer, and has a passion for the theater arts and bringing beauty to the world.