Advisory Committee

Ann curry, pa-c

Ann is inspired by her recent years of work in palliative care to be a part of Arizona Community Death Care. Her passion is in integrating allopathic medicine with both holistic and natural approaches to wellness. She grew up in Philadelphia where she returned for graduate school at Drexel University and to complete yoga teacher certification. She has lived in Arizona for 15 years and finds hope and inspiration in the many amazing families and peers she has met in Prescott. She currently splits her time between Prescott and Skull Valley where she helps run Skull Valley Lavender Farm.

Dani Lavoire, Lm, CPM

Dani comes to this work because of a deep need to live life in the liminal spaces and foster experiences for others seeking comfort in unfamiliar territory. While working as a home birth midwife for almost 2 decades, she realized that the same skills of the heart that have served birthing families could also help deepen the experiences of families facing death. Dani is a home funeral guide, passionate public speaker, writer, mother, wife and homesteader. Her deepest passion lies in creating strong communities by encouraging grace in challenging moments.

Erica McNelly, RN, BSN

Erica is a nurse who found her calling at the bedside of terminally ill people. She feels her most vital contribution is in providing hands on care and generous listening. She is profoundly enriched by each of the patients and families she serves and has a deep appreciation for the intimacy and grace that unfolds when attending people in their own homes during this raw and vulnerable time. Witnessing firsthand the healing that accompanies family centered after-death care, Erica is moved to advocate for these authentic celebrations and expressions of grief.

Jade Sherer

Jade Sherer is a wild lover of Earth and Her inhabitants, as well as Her continuum of cycles of life and death. Wallace Stevens said, “Death is the Mother of beauty” and Jade seems to know this in her bones. When she had a brush with death twenty years ago, Jade found herself vowing to apprentice to death for the rest of her days. This has fueled the impetus to hold space for death, to be one of the founders of a green cemetery in Washington state, to guide hundreds in nature-based transformational work, and now in allying with AZDC in hopes of inviting her community into a consciousness around death and grief. In this she sees the possibility of befriending these vilified aspects of our humanity…our grief and our dying. In Jade’s guiding work at ItsOurNature.net she encourages people to practice dying, so to live more fully in this life.

Aristides nafpliotis “OTIS“

Otis is a long time Prescott resident His interest in this project began with the conversations at the Death Cafe. Otis comes to this work in hopes to support neighbors and friends to live and die well and to have the opportunity to talk about it along the way.