April 2025

We are beginning to see signs of spring at the cemetery! The town of Roxbury has done a great job with the roads leading to the cemetery (Tracy Hill Road, Beaver Meadow Road, and Cram Hill Road), but wet spells can create days where the roads become muddy and rutted and four wheel or all wheel drive and good tires are strongly recommended until the official end of mud season! More detailed advice for visitors can be found on the front page of our website.

VFC Mud Guidlines

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Welcome Back Michelle & Paul!

Our big news this month is that Michelle and Paul are returning from their family leave. They have been making frequent visits to the cemetery with Nico (now 4 months old), planning projects for the coming year, teaching Nico the stories of the cemetery, and even giving him his first lesson on the mini excavator.

Please join us in celebrating their return at the Savoy Theatre in Montpelier on Saturday May 3rd at noon for To Live & Love as Mortals: 3 TEDx Talks Explore the Heart of their Encounters with Death.

Featuring:

Kim Nolan (Advocate, Chaplain) whose TEDx Talk “The Spaces In Between” tells of a series of health crises and a moment of choice that led to a radical understanding of awe in the everyday.Her call to bear witness to this lower case "awe" was tested on retreat at Auswchitz and is especially potent as we navigate the uncharted waters of these times.

Jennifer Mathews (Facilitator, Writer) presenting  “Death is Inevitable – Grief is Not,” her personal and unconventional TEDx Talk inviting us to break free from the limitations and language of a grieving process and reconsider the way we think about and respond to the death of those we love.

And 

Michelle Hogle Acciavatti (Deathworker, Storyteller) whose Tedx Talk “Legacy of Death, Legacy of Life” explores her journey from academic science to a new mother while opening Vermont Forest Cemetery. Her personal reflections explore what it could be to live in reciprocity with the gift of life itself and what our stories of ourselves ultimately mean.

The video presentations of the talks originally presented at TEDx events will be followed by an opportunity to meet and discuss the talks and themes with Kim, Jennifer and Michelle.

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Registration is open our 2025 Cemetery Tours!

Those of you who follow us on our webpage and social media will have noticed that we have announced a number of new upcoming events!  Join us for Founder Tours led by Michelle, Cemeterian Tours led by Bailey and Docent Tours led by natural burial advocates. We will also continue holding Cemetery Stewardship days with our Sexton, Paul, and are excited to announce that this year we’ve added Citizen Science Days! All of these events are free and open to the public. We encourage you to RSVP early as our tours fill up quickly!

News and scheduled showings of the documentary From Earth to Earth

The fabulous documentary From Earth to Earth: The Lost Art of Dying in America, which features Michelle and Vermont Forest Cemetery, has continued to earn recognition and awards on national and international film circuits. The latest news is that the documentary has been nominated for a Webby award in both the Documentary Short and the Student Film categories with voting that concluded on April 17th. The film has also been nominated for a Peoples Telly Award! Thank you for helping the students who produced the documentary get the recognition they deserve!

We are grateful for the continued support from our network of volunteers:

As our busiest season begins, we will be calling for help from volunteers to help build, improve and maintain the network of trails in the cemetery, to help with other infrastructure related projects, and from time to time to help with burials. If you want to be a part of this growing and wholehearted community, please sign up as a volunteer!

Help us get the word out

As always, our best outreach comes from people who know us from our newsletters, social media, and events who reach out and tell their family, friends, and members of their community about us. So many in Vermont still do not know that this is even an option for them, which is why we have been criss-crossing the state with events in communities large and small. We thank you in advance for sharing our story with your community and loved ones!

Your donations are tax deductible!

Please consider making a donation today. Even small gifts will help us continue to keep the cemetery open for visitors 12 months a year. Thank you so much for helping us build the cemetery into a fully accessible, sustainable place that serves all the needs of our community. We are so grateful for your support.

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Those of us who work at the Vermont Forest Cemetery are committed to providing the best possible service to our community, and encourage you to contact us at any time with questions, concerns or ideas at info@cemetery.eco.

We value your continued support and are deeply indebted to those of you who have volunteered to help build trails, participate in burials, or just bear witness for those experiencing loss; for those who chose to make tax deductible donations, and to those who have chosen to support us through advanced purchases of burial rights. Thank you for your continued support!

Once spring arrives we hope to see many of you at the cemetery.  It is a beautiful place in all seasons, made all the more beautiful by the stories it holds.