About Us

Benson Canfield is a nurse practitioner residing in Williamstown, VT. He has worked at various levels of licensure in clinical settings such as addiction treatment, research, inpatient medical-surgical, intensive care, and home health.

As a provider of healthcare to older adults as well a new father, Benson is well-attuned to the urgent need for increased support services for both children and adults in our community. He is excited to be a part of the collaborative effort to bring this innovative model to individuals and families in central VT.

Marissa Birne is the Associate Director of Education at the University of Vermont Center on Aging, where she oversees educational opportunities in gerontology and geriatrics. She previously developed multigenerational programs with senior living residents and volunteers of all ages as the Program Manager for Youth, Arts, and Volunteer Initiatives at Hebrew SeniorLife. She has fostered community building through music as a volunteer with the Manawa Ora Children Community Choir in Wellington, New Zealand and the North Hill Retirement Community chorus in Massachusetts. She also takes great joy in her volunteer role as a mentor to a 14-year-old through Big Brothers Big Sisters. She earned her BA in Peace & Justice Studies from Tufts University and her Ed.M. in Human Development and Education from Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Christy Swenson is a speech-language pathologist who has spent the last 25 years working with young children and geriatric adults. She lives in Montpelier with her two teenage sons and a cat. She enjoys gardening, reading, and hiking. Christy is currently the director of Capstone Head Start serving Lamoille, Washington, and Orange Counties. She is the chair of the Vermont HeadStart Association, co-chair of Vermont’s Interagency Coordination Council, advising the State on services for children birth to three with special needs, and secretary of Building Bright Futures, advising the State on services for all children birth to eight.

Martha Trombley Oakes is the Director of Philanthropy at the Vermont Community Foundation. She oversees the Philanthropic Advising team, which works closely with individuals and families to find and fund the causes that are meaningful and aligned with their values. Prior to working at the Foundation, Martha was the president and CEO of the National Life Group Charitable Foundation where she ran the Foundation for 10 years before becoming the associate dean for institutional advancement at Vermont Technical College.

In In addition to being a certified 21/64 advisor, Martha also earned the Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy® designation to better serve the donors she works with. Martha lives in East Montpelier with her husband and two daughters.

Diane Jones is the Palliative and Complex Care Case Manager at Central Vermont Home Health & Hospice. In this role, Diane oversees the One Care Vermont Longitudinal Care Program where she assures timely and efficient patient care to reduce hospital admission and keep patients in the setting where they chose to be. An expert in chronic disease program management and design she has led oncology patient exercise and community wellness programs and rolled out Pilot projects in collaboration with UVMMC, DOHVT and CVMC to Vermonters with chronic illnesses. A member of UVMMC Cancer Center Advisory Board, she dedicates time to increasing quality of life for Vermonters living with Cancer. Diane is a founder of Maria’s Weekend Retreat and continues to give back to the community providing palliative care patient triage and case management services to patients at CVHHH. She earned her MA from the College of Nursing at University of Vermont and resides in the Mad River Valley with her family.

Nikhil Goyal is a sociologist and author of Live to See the Day: Coming of Age in American Poverty (Metropolitan/Macmillan), which The New Yorker named A Best Book of 2023 and the Washington Post raved about: “the stories of these children will change the way you think about poverty.” He is also a policymaker who served as senior policy advisor on education and children for Chairman Senator Bernie Sanders on the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions and Committee on the Budget. Goyal earned his B.A. at Goddard College and M.Phil and Ph.D at the University of Cambridge. He lives in Vermont.

Erin Clark, a registered nurse, has worked at Central Vermont Home Health and Hospice as a field clinician, case manager and clinical preceptor for seven years. Prior to becoming a nurse, she worked for UVM Extension, Vermont Organic Farmers, and the Biomass Energy Resource Center in administrative and program coordination capacities. Erin is a graduate of York University (Toronto), BA in History and the Vermont State University nursing program.

Over the past two years, Erin has researched the intergenerational care model and engaged local representatives, community groups, stakeholders and professional associations in support of creating an intergenerational day services model to bring adult day services and childcare to Central Vermont. In addition to recruiting a six- member founding board of directors, Erin secured $132,000 in grant funding from the Vermont Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living (DAIL) to support initial organizational, programmatic, and building/site planning work for Generations Vermont.

Bob Crego has worked in community development for over 35 years; first, as a federal grant writer and program administrator in upstate New York, Bob focused on housing rehabilitation, and public water, wastewater, and storm drainage projects. In Vermont he has been active in accessing grant and tax credit financing for affordable housing, assisted living, and mixed use downtown revitalization projects. Known by some as “the Numbers Guy,” Bob is also a “Big Pictures Guy,” having worked as an executive director for four different organizations. Bob lives in Williamsville, Vermont with his partner, Jean, two dogs, a cat, and several bicycles.