Care and Stewardship: Kindness, Grief and Loss

Join us for the last installment of our 2025 Lecture Series with presenters Elizabeth Johnson and Judah Slavkovsky

Date: Thursday, October 23rd

Time: 6 - 7:30 p.m.

Location: Pine Meadow Ranch Center for Arts & Agriculture

We are excited to host Elizabeth Johnson, of Peaceful Presence Project and surgeon, Judah Slavkovsky, to discuss the benefit of community, kindness and connection during times of grief, loss, and uncertainty.

Lecture Highlights:

Building Compassionate Communities: Integrating Death Literacy, Grief Awareness, and Community-Based End-of-Life Care.

During this talk, Elizabeth will delve into the transformative potential of community-centered care in supporting individuals and families navigating serious and terminal illness. Grounded in principles of death and grief literacy, mutual aid, and the public health palliative care approach, this session will explore how compassionate communities can provide holistic, culturally responsive, and accessible support for those at the end of life. Attendees will engage with frameworks that foster collective care through community stewardship, emphasizing shared responsibility and population-wide education to address the emotional, social, and practical needs of individuals facing life’s end. Elizabeth will highlight the role of public health strategies in normalizing conversations about death, grief, and loss, while empowering communities to take active roles in caregiving. Through case studies and interactive discussions, the attendees will gain basic tools to begin building compassionate networks that uphold the dignity of every individual within their communities. This talk seeks to reframe how we approach death and dying, emphasizing connection, compassion, and collective action.

The Floorboards Under the Operating Table – How Conflict and Kindness are Contagious

Our second speaker, Judah Slavkovsky, will discuss how taking care of patients wounded by conflict interfaces with many aspects of human behavior. It will show how human violence oddly behaves like a spreading flu and how choices to show compassion and kindness, or work cooperatively also are contagious. What individuals steward and grow affects the behaviors of those around them. The talk will draw on experiences witnessing and taking care of injured patients as well as improving care through education in austere environments.

About the Speakers:

, MA

Elizabeth is co-founder and Executive Director of The Peaceful Presence Project, a community based organization with the mission to reimagine and transform the way communities talk about, plan for and experience the last stage of life. With a master's degree in Community and Urban Planning, she has traveled the globe as an educator and facilitator, awakening her fascination with the cultural and social contexts that shape human understandings of illness, grief and death. One of her formative experiences includes working in the mid-90’s as a volunteer at Kalighat, a community-based hospice for the sick, destitute and the dying in Kolkata, India. She is a member of the Public Health Palliative Care International leadership council, as well as a board member for the Central Oregon Council on Aging. She is also a former member of the Board of Directors for the National End-of-Life Doula Alliance and co-led their Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee. She is passionate about integrating death literacy initiatives in local communities and encouraging honest dialogue around the complexities of the dying process.

, MD FACS

A graduate of Sisters High School, Dr. Slavkovsky is a global humanitarian surgeon with expertise managing patients hurt directly and indirectly by human conflict. He is keenly interested in supporting the growth of health systems as they work to effectively care for the injured. He frequently works in solidarity with surgical colleagues facing war and runs training programs to further upskill providers. Slavkovsky is a practicing trauma and acute care surgeon.

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