NEWBURY, Vt. — The air was 47 degrees on the trail off North Road, the kind of spring day in northern New England that is pleasant in the sunshine and chilly in the shade.
Ten University of Vermont students and their two professors had ventured off the trail, and were perched on tree stumps, leaning against rocks, or laying on the ground.
“Really just partner with the forest and nature around us to have the experience of letting go and being present,” Rebecca Nagle, a clinical associate professor at the University of Vermont, told the group before entering the woods.
It was just days before their final exams, and the students were practicing Shinrin-yoku, or forest bathing, a Japanese mindfulness exercise.
Spending time in the forest comes with health benefits such as reducing cortisol levels, boosting immune health and mitigating disease, Nagle, a doctor of nursing practice, explained to the class of mostly nursing students.
The visitors from UVM were the first university group the nonprofit Plenitud had hosted in Vermont since launching a teaching farm in Newbury last year, Co-Executive Director Paula Paoli Garrido told the gathered students at the start of the day-long program.
The event was part of a college travel course called “Puerto Rico: The intersection of mindfulness, compassion and planetary health.” The group spent a week in Puerto Rico in March.
Paoli Garrido and Owen Ingley started Plenitud in Puerto Rico in 2008. There, they operate a sustainable teaching farm with about 25 employees where they grow food to feed the community and host workshops on topics such as agriculture, water security, construction and wellness.
Plenitud regularly hosts college and high school students from the continental U.S. for service learning experiences. After years of working with East Coast-based groups, the team wanted to expand to Vermont.
Plenitud bought the 101-acre property on North Road in Newbury for $615,000 in 2023, according to property records. In late 2024, they presented Newbury’s Development Review Board with a 20-year vision for the land and secured approval to convert the property from a residential farm to an educational facility.
Plenitud hopes the expansion creates more “touch points” between Puerto Rico and Vermont, Jessica Jones-Hughes, an associate director at Plenitud who runs the Vermont operation, said.
“Hopefully that helps spark creativity in yourself of how these values and principles can be applied in different settings and that you’re trying to hold on to the content of them, even if the form changes,” she said.
Getting established
In its first year, Plenitud held a few programs but mostly focused on “setting the foundation for the farm,” including planting more than 60 fruit trees, bushes and shrubs along the road and up the hillside, said Jones-Hughes, who lives in Newbury through the peak seasons of spring, summer and fall with her husband Dan Greif, a therapist who described himself as Plenitud’s “number one volunteer.” They spend winters at the Plenitud farm in Puerto Rico.
The team has built a 1,200 square foot, partially-underground house overlooking North Road where Plenitud staff live and host events, in addition to another house already on the property. Three to five people live at the farm during any given time in the spring, summer and fall.
The front side of the underground house is decked out with windows and the back half disappears into the hillside for natural heating and cooling. It is complete with a wildflower roof that blooms in the summer and the whole house was framed with timber harvested from the 100-acre property.
Plenitud also plans to build greenhouses, plant row crops and start a food forest, pollinator meadow, sugar bush and pastures for animal agriculture. They have already hosted some wellness, sustainable agriculture and service workshops at the new farm.
In 2025, Plenitud hosted an “emerging leaders program” for young adults in Newbury. The device-free five-day program focused on immersing participants in nature, teaching leadership skills and addressing social isolation, Jones-Hughes said.
Plenitud is gearing up to host a second annual leadership training for 18 to 25 year olds in August.
Nagle and Lili Martin, also a clinical associate professor at UVM and doctor of nursing practice, started the travel course in 2024.
Students travel to Puerto Rico to learn mindfulness and reflection practices backed by research that they can use themselves and with future patients, including meditation and yoga. The course also touches on how human health and the planet are interconnected.
The course includes one day at the Plenitud farm in Puerto Rico planting, touring the farm and learning about planetary health. Next year, the professors plan to spend more of the trip with Plenitud.
“We really wanted service learning in our courses,” Nagle said. “We feel like Plenitud really can be that piece.”
Plenitud’s relationship with Nagle and Martin has been an important stepping stone into Vermont, Jones-Hughes said. They plan to host another group of UVM students during freshman orientation in August.
Building relationships
Newbury residents say Jones-Hughes and Greif have worked hard to get to know the community since arriving in town.
News that the nonprofit would be coming to North Road initially stirred up apprehension for some Newbury residents.
When Plenitud arrived in 2023, the town was still fighting a state plan to build a residential treatment center for youth involved in the justice system in Newbury. The proposal drew intense backlash and litigation from residents from the time the state proposed it in 2020 until it was ultimately shelved in 2024.
Emmy and Rick Hausman have lived in Newbury since 1971. Emmy Hausman currently serves on Newbury’s Development Review Board. They live about five miles from Plenitud.
In the early days, Emmy Hausman said Plenitud’s plan sounded “pie in the sky, a bit” and people “naturally were suspicious.”
Things changed when she met Jones-Hughes and Greif.
“We realized that this was anything but a detention center in disguise,” Emmy Hausman said. “That they had a really important mission and they started appearing at all sorts of community events volunteering their services.”
Rick Hausman also realized in time that Greif and Jones-Hughes “couldn’t be a nicer match” for Newbury, always pitching in in ways that are “never flashy” like washing dishes at the annual West Newbury Turkey Supper.
Last summer, the Hausmans hosted the 25-30 attendees of the Plenitud leadership training for dinner prepared in their outdoor pizza oven.
“It was just the nicest event imaginable,” Emmy said. “People pitched in. They were appreciative. They were fascinating to talk to.”
“I haven’t taken a survey, but my sense is that there’s little or no resistance at this point to Plenitud,” Rick said. “They have proven themselves as worthy neighbors.”
Tom Kidder, chairman of the Tucker Mountain Town Forest Management Committee, first heard about Plenitud during a town meeting and recalled some people being “skeptical” of the “new and strange” proposal to put a business in a residential district.
He has since enjoyed helping Plenitud groups do service work including planting and thinning trees in the town forest and appreciates that Plenitud takes time to discuss “the importance of community service as part of leadership and part of citizenship.”
Forest bathing
The itinerary for the UVM students’ day in Newbury included forest bathing, a shared vegetarian lunch and an afternoon of reflection exercises.
Jones-Hughes declined to share the cost of the experience, but said Plenitud sets different costs for each group depending on circumstances like the group’s budget and financial means or if Plenitud has any outside funding to put toward the program.
“We’re so excited to be here,” Nagle said. “It’s a piece of bringing forward that community into Vermont and back to campus.”
The group gathered in the underground house to start the day.
Paoli Garrido and Jones-Hughes worked away in the kitchen as the students arrived, preparing coffee, golden milk, popcorn and banana bread, and doling out hugs and enthusiastic welcomes.
After an ice breaker, the group set intentions for the day.
Students hoped to step away from exam stress and the bubble of UVM and spend time outside. They were looking forward to reconnecting with peers and unplugging from their phones.
Eric Moore, a sophomore nursing student, called the day “the calm before the storm” and said he was excited for the chance to “reset” before exams.
Nagle then introduced the main event of the morning: forest bathing. She explained that the students can incorporate forest bathing into patient care, noting that even observing a tree outside of a hospital window has its benefits.
The group traversed up into the woods, and, after a short meditation, split off for 20 minutes of reflection.
A few minutes after walking out into the woods, all of the participants had stilled, leaving only the surprisingly loud sounds of birds in the trees and insects buzzing. Any shifting against the dry leaves felt like a cacophony of sound ricocheting through the forest.
‘Reentering the world’
When the class reconvened the group settled into a tight circle atop a patchwork of colorful blankets carefully laid out in one of the only spots where the sun filtered through the trees.
They broke out leftover snacks and poured homemade pine ginger tea into a mismatched collection of mugs and cups.
As they sat, the group passed a makeshift talking stick from person to person to reflect on their forest bathing experience.
“It was loud, I heard things I wouldn’t normally notice,” remarked Emily Lamoreaux, a sophomore nursing student. “It’s quiet, but it’s loud.”
“It made me wonder what this place would look like in different seasons,” Daria Falkowsky, a senior psychology major, chimed in.
“It made me think about how humans and nature exist together” and served as “a reminder to be gentle with my surroundings,” said Mack Thomas, also a senior psychology major who had noticed sawdust around the downed log she was sitting on.
As the group wrapped up their reflections, Nagle encouraged them to imagine themselves “reentering the world around us.”
“As we exit, take a snapshot, one thing of your time in the forest with you, and call on it when you’re studying for exams,” Nagle directed.
Just like that, the spell of the forest broke.
The group tucked into their snacks and tea as conversation returned to mundane topics like classes, exams and who sneezed while the woods were silent.
Whitney Ross, a first-year nursing student, said in an interview after forest bathing that she felt relaxed and “removed from my reality right now.”
Sarah Gargano, another first-year nursing student, set herself up with a view while forest bathing and was “having a great time” looking out at the mountains.
“It’s been nice to get to do it in Vermont, to know that all of the things that I did in Puerto Rico are applicable to Vermont,” Gargano said. “I feel like this really ties it up.”
