Carolina Memorial Sanctuary
Carolina Memorial Sanctuary, picture courtesy of GREEN BURIAL COUNCIL

About Green Burial Massachusetts

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
  • to educate the public about green burial.

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 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.

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.
Download the "About GBM" PDF

GBM Team

Candace Currie, Clerk and Director

Candace Currie serves as clerk on the board of directors of Green Burial Massachusetts, Inc. 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.

Harper Giusfredi, Vice Treasurer

Harper Giusfredi is a geoscientist with a background in petroleum exploration and production. She received her bachelor’s degree in geological sciences from the University of Miami and then Master of Science degree in marine geology and geophysics from the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science at the University of Miami. A recent transplant from Texas, she has joined Green Burial Massachusetts in order to help GBM establish a conservation cemetery in Massachusetts. Harper believes that our ecological responsibility does not end at death and that access to dignified and affordable death care is a human right.

Eileen Hoarle-Reuter, Director

Inspired by her mother's passing, Eileen Hoarle-Reuter realized that a death does not have to be as painful. Being a nurse for over twenty years she has focused her passion into palliative, hospice, and oncology care while remaining close to her roots in the Pioneer Valley. To her, green burial is a culmination of a good life with a good death. In being a resource, she wants to empower and lead people to talk about death. 

Coco King, Director

Coco King grew up immersed in the family trade of honoring legacies, working alongside her father at their monument shop in Milford, Connecticut. Coco often accompanied her father to cemeteries across the state to place gravestones. While she admired the craftsmanship of her family’s work, she couldn’t help but notice a pattern in the cemeteries she visited: manicured lawns, sparse trees, and an absence of the vibrant wildlife that defines natural landscapes. These spaces, though peaceful, felt sterile and detached from the cycles of life and death. When her father passed away in 2017, Coco witnessed firsthand how traditional burial practices reinforced this disconnection. His funeral and burial, while dignified and formal, seemed impersonal—a grave situated in a neatly trimmed lawn surrounded by office buildings.

In 2021, Coco embarked on a transformative journey. She interned at White Eagle Memorial Preserve, a conservation cemetery nestled in the forests of Washington State. There, she discovered a different way to honor the deceased: untreated caskets, hand-dug graves, family involvement, and burial grounds that seamlessly integrated with the surrounding wilderness. This approach not only reconnected loved ones with nature but also fostered a deep sense of participation and healing in the process of saying goodbye. Inspired and determined to bring this ethos to New England, Coco has made it her mission to reimagine cemeteries as spaces of life, not just loss. She aims to reconnect people with the land, with the natural cycle of life and death, and with their own grief. By advocating for green burial practices, Coco is helping communities transform the way they view end-of-life rituals—creating places where nature, memory, and humanity coexist in harmony.

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.

History

We've been doing education and advocacy work promoting green burials for over 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.