Our Team at Mercy Ecospirituality Center
Kayla Buxton
Executive Director
Kayla is our resident beekeeper, garden manager, experimental bread-baker and director of Mercy Ecology. While she oversees the many threads that make up the tapestry of this organization, she finds so much joy in leading the diverse volunteer groups that come to support MEC. Community is built through the nourishment of these connections - we all have so much to offer one another, and she is endlessly inspired by both the teaching-of and the learning-from each individual she meets.
She does her best to live gently with the world around her, spending time reading, kayaking and enjoying the company of beings of all kinds (especially our barn cat, B.C.).
Amanda Reese
Hospitality & Outreach Coordinator
Amanda brings warmth and welcome to MEC as the resident Hospitality & Outreach Coordinator. She loves creating spaces where people feel at home - whether that’s around the table, on a walk through the grounds, or in community beyond our center. A lifelong concertgoer (with a soft spot for Noah Kahan), she also finds joy in growing onions, collecting vintage treasures like typewriters and old cameras and exploring her love of photography.
For Amanda, the best part of her work is recognizing that we’re all in the process of becoming - all life on land and the earth itself. She believes hospitality and outreach are about living in harmony with the natural world, giving and receiving in the same way it so generously gives to us.
Our Focus
Mercy Ecospirituality Center of Mercy Ecology, Inc. is a sponsored work of the Sisters of Mercy. We are committed to reflection, education and living gently in mutual relationship with the Earth. We offer hospitality for those seeking solace and to refresh their spirit in the beauty of creation, as well as programs in ecospirituality.
The Benedictine monks of Elmira, NY gave the 39-acre property located in the rural beauty of Vermont to the Vermont Sisters of Mercy. Sisters Judy Fortune and Elaine Deasy directed it as Lumen Christi Retreat House for many years, but after Lumen Christi closed, a group of Sisters established it as an Ecospirituality Center, originally named Mercy Farm in 2010.
The new is always unfolding in our evolutionary universe. We strive to honor that as we welcome all to the sacred land of Mercy Ecospirituality Center.
Sisters of Mercy
Mercy Ecology, Inc.
We are a Laudato Si Organization
The Laudato Si’ Action Platform is a unique collaboration between the Vatican, an international coalition of Catholic organizations, and “all men and women of good will.” (LS 3) Taking a truly ground-up approach, it is rooted in the strengths and realities of communities around the world, empowering all to take “decisive action, here and now” as we journey towards a better future together. (LS 161)
Action is urgently needed. Our Creator called the human family to be the steward of creation, but we have neglected that call. Our hotter, dirtier, deader planet is driving up the risk of suffering. The most vulnerable suffer above all.
At this kairos moment, we are responding to the call for healing in our relationships with God, our neighbors, and the Earth itself. Through the Laudato Si’ Action Platform, we are walking the “path to renewal” together (LS 202).
Board of Directors
Kayla Buxton
Executive Director
Kathleen Butts
Secretary
Laura Della Santa, RSM
Dawn Ellinwood
Vice-Chair
Sue-Rae Glinka
Chair
Anna Lester
Jayme Purdy
Treasurer
Elizabeth Reardon
Lara Scott
Our Commitment
We are committed to protecting the environment, the health and safety of our employees, guests, and volunteers and the community in which we conduct our business. It is our policy to seek improvements throughout our operations to lessen our impact on the local and global environment by conserving energy, water, and other natural resources; reducing waste generation; recycling and purchasing recycled products; and reducing our use of toxic materials.