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.). 

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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 Board of Directors
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From left to right: Anna Lester, Lara Scott, Kathleen Butts, Heidi St. Peter, Sue-Rae Glinka, Laura Della Santa, RSM, Cecilia Ferland, RSM, Cindy Thompson, Kathleen Pritty, RSM, Dawn Ellinwood Not pictured: Liz Reardon, Chris Thompson, Lynn Kennedy

Our History

In the 1950s, the “Sunrise House” (now the main guest house) and was designed and built by local architect Graham Carey for his wife Nancy, as was a small barn, and this was where the Benedictine Monks of Elmira, NY were invited to raise their sheep on the 39-acre property.

On August 16, 1982, The Institute for Spiritual Development within the Sisters of Mercy was established to respond to the needs of persons of all faiths who wished to renew or deepen their spiritual life, directed by Sister Judy Fortune.

On Christmas night in 1986, the original barn was entirely lost to a fire. The whole community came together the following spring to rebuild alongside the Monks and the resulting barn is the one that still stands today.

In 1988, the Monks took over the property and it became known as Lumen Christi Monastery, managed by Father Gerald Regis. Onto the main house, they added a sitting room, a library, an art room and a small chapel. During this time, the Monks offered the Institute of Spiritual Development space to use for spiritual retreats and workshops, beginning an eight-year relationship.

In 1995, the Benedictine Monks gifted the deed to the property to the Vermont Sisters of Mercy, and it was then that the center became known simply as Lumen Christi.

On October 23, 2009, Lumen Christi closed and the following year, in 2010, Sisters Mary Pendergast and Nancy Audette saw an opportunity for a different use of the property and so began the process of incorporation for Mercy Ecology, Inc., which now has a great reach, but encompasses Mercy Ecospirituality Center, an earth and sustainability-focused retreat center and working hobby homestead.