We hope you will join us on 11/23/19 in Freeport, Maine for a day full of informative seminars and networking opportunities with your fellow funeral directors, sponsors and vendors! What a great opportunity to get away and spend some quality time with your funeral director community.

Sara shares responsibility for coordinating the Bereavement Services programming at the Portland location of the Center for Grieving Children. Prior to joining the staff, Sara maintained a long connection with the Center as an intern, volunteer and training consultant. Her current work at the Center involves working closely with families, volunteers and the community in the areas of grief and loss, program development, outreach, and training. Sara holds a Master's Degree in expressive therapies/counseling from Lesley University with an emphasis in expressive therapy. She developed an interest in art therapy while working as a K-12 art teacher, witnessing the ways students naturally processed their experiences through their artwork. Sara used art modalities in her private practice offering support to children, teens and adults during bereavement and other life transitions, and has worked as a clinician with adolescents in a group home setting, an environment where there have been many experiences of loss. 

This course is a first introduction to the basic premises of green burial. By and large, people are looking for sense of place, of being able to think of their loved ones in a familiar setting, one of peace and comfort. Burial is also in accord with certain religious doctrine, particularly that of resurrection, where full body is necessary. More people are considering the environmental impact as part of their exit plan, which they want, above all, to be in alignment with their core values in life. Cost may play a small or a large part in their decision as well. Green burial offers all of these, plus the invitation to participate as much as desired during the process, from after-death care to shoveling in the dirt at burial.

Candace, Secretary of the Green Burial Council, is also the former Director of Planning and Cemetery Development at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge and Watertown, MA. She began her Mount Auburn career as a volunteer in the mid-1990s mapping some of the 5,000+ trees throughout 175 acres. Mount Auburn Cemetery was certified by the GBC as a hybrid burial ground in 2014. She left Mount Auburn in March 2018 to dedicate her time to establishing green burial grounds throughout Massachusetts. She is the clerk for Green Burial Massachusetts, Inc. – a 501(c)(3) advocating on behalf of individuals who choose natural burial and providing technical assistance to municipalities, neighborhood groups, and non-profit organizations on creating green burial options in local cemeteries. .

Theresa is the Executive Director of Kennebec Land Trust. She earned a Master's degree in Ecology and Environmental Science from the University of Maine and he undergraduate degree is in Environmental Resource Management from Penn State University. In 2009,Theresa and former KLT President Andrew Fisk, led an effort with Morten Moesswilde and Andrew Shultz of the Maine Forest Service to found the Kennebec Woodland Partnership, which now includes thirteen Partners. Theresa’s latest project with Ken Laustsen, also of the Maine Forest Service, is a research paper focused on the potential for developing and sustaining markets for Maine wood. Theresa and her husband, Jim, garden, raise chickens, split wood, and enjoy their 72 acres of woodland in Wayne. Whenever possible they spend time with their grown children