Who We Are and What We Do

Green Burial Massachusetts (GBM) is a statewide all-volunteer 501(c)(3) nonprofit whose guiding principle is to restore death to its rightful place in the cycle of life. Our mission is twofold:

• to start the first green cemetery open to all in Massachusetts, and
• to educate the public about green burial.

Massachusetts Conservation Cemetery

In 2019 we created a 501(c)(13) cemetery corporation in anticipation of purchasing land for a conservation cemetery . We follow up on leads, check maps, consult with our land trust partners, talk to realtors, and walk parcels in search of a piece of land that calls to us.

Education

• We provide talks, workshops, webinars, and other educational programs at public libraries, senior centers, green fairs, and other venues. Our presentations cover what green burial is, how it works, where it can be done, and more.
• We periodically offer volunteer trainings, to give others the resources and confidence to speak to groups about green burial.
• We educate municipalities and nonprofit organizations about natural burial.

Downloadable About Us .pdf

GBM Team

Candace Currie, Clerk and Director

Candace Currie serves as clerk on the board of directors of Green Burial Massachusetts, Inc., a statewide, nonprofit organization, educating the public about green burials. She is also president of Green Burial Massachusetts Cemetery, a nonprofit, private cemetery organization working to bring conservation cemeteries to our state. Her passion for this work developed during her 20-year tenure at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, the first garden cemetery in the nation. As Mount Auburn’s Director of Planning and Sustainability, she led its certification as a hybrid cemetery, offering both green and conventional burials. She was also a key force behind Mount Auburn’s Climate Action and Sustainability Plan. Candace served as board member of the Green Burial Council (GBC), which certifies cemeteries, funeral homes, and products against a set of verifiable standards. Under her leadership, the cemetery standards were revised in 2019.  She is a member of the cemetery commission in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.  Candace is a graduate of the Conway School of Landscape Design and believes that anyone who desires an earth-friendly burial should be able to obtain one easily, affordably, and locally.

Coco King, Director

Eva Moseley, Director

Eva is also the Membership Secretary of the Funeral Consumers Alliance of Eastern Massachusetts (FCAEM), which, along with the FCA of Western Massachusetts, launched GBM, Inc. Before retiring, she was curator of manuscripts at Radcliffe’s women’s history library.

In her youth Eva studied Sanskrit and Hinduism, thus learning about cycles of life and death, as opposed to the “Western” philosophy of infinite growth (bigger, faster, more of everything). Born in 1931, she has, along with environmental and philosophical concerns, a personal interest in finding land for a green burial ground soon, due to the “actuarial imperative” (i.e., she’s old) and to having three generations of offspring.

In 2019, Eva was nominated for the Green Burial Council Leadership Award, which is presented to an individual, organization, or business that has demonstrated foresight, innovation and extraordinary commitment to the environment through sustainability and attainability in the area of human death care practices.

Jo Oltman, President and Director

Jo Oltman has been death positive for as long as she can remember, and she is passionate about green burial. An unabashed taphophile, Jo has visited and photographed dozens of iconic cemeteries in the U.S., Mexico, and Europe, and she is excited about creating the first conservation burial ground here in Massachusetts. She spends much of her time reading articles about death practices and has been a frequent participant of Death Cafes and the Death Salon hosted by The Order of the Good Death. She has spoken about natural burial at the Daughters of Darkness Festival in Salem and the Hospice & Palliative Care Federation of Massachusetts annual conference in Norwood.

Professionally, Jo is a proposal manager for an architecture and urban planning firm in Boston. She previously directed marketing for a landscape architecture firm specializing in cemetery master planning, where she applied her passion for green burial to help the designers educate industry peers about opportunities for making beautiful, sustainable spaces for people to celebrate life and honor loved ones.

Joan Pillsbury, Treasurer and Director

Joan has been interested in green burial since 2009 when she read Mark Harris’s book, Grave Matters: A Journey of the Modern Funeral Industry to a Natural Way of Burial. She called her Funeral Consumers Alliance of Western Mass (FCAWM) contact person, Carol Coan, and they took a field trip to Greensprings Natural Cemetery Preserve outside of Ithaca, New York. She joined FCAWM and became a Green Burial Committee member, now Green Burial Massachusetts, Inc.

Joan values the concepts of reduce, reuse and recycle, and has an energy efficient home with alternative energy sources. Green burial makes sense to her. Joan is passionate about having a green cemetery in Massachusetts for everyone.

Sophia Sayigh, Director

Sophia was drawn to the idea of returning to the earth as naturally as possible as soon as she found out about it fifteen years ago, and immediately organized a well-attended GBM information night at her local library to spread the word. She is glad to be part of making green burial an option for anyone who desires it.

A former librarian and lay breastfeeding counselor, she is a member of the Brewster Cemetery Commission.

History

We’ve been doing education and advocacy work promoting green burials for 10 years. As of March 2016, we incorporated as a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization for charitable, educational, scientific and literary purposes. This change puts us in a better position for receiving donations of both money and land. Co-founded by Carol Coan and Judith Lorei, Green Burial Massachusetts began as a committee of the Funeral Consumers Alliance of Western Massachusetts (FCAWM), and it has been generously supported by the Funeral Consumers Alliance of Eastern Massachusetts (FCAEM). Green Burial Massachusetts, Inc. is grateful for the foresight, commitment and continued work by both chapters of the Funeral Consumers Alliance to advance green burial.