About Us

Volunteer Staff: The four teachers, all working without compensation, have extensive meditation and teaching experience. We each feel that this is the most rewarding teaching we’ve experienced. We always look forward to our evening at the prison. The courage, eagerness to learn, compassion and loving nature of the inmates inspires us. When we stand in the parking lot after teaching our hearts are at once joyous from our interaction with the women and broken as we look back on the ominous lights and barbed wire of the place that houses their bodies.

	Pat Coffey has over 30 years of intensive meditation experience. He has studied with the major meditation teachers of North America and many Asian teachers. Pat teaches at The Insight Meditation Society in Barre MA, Southern Dharma Retreat Center and other venues in VA, DC, NC, MD, WVA, GA and FL. He is on the Board of Directors at the Insight Meditation Society in Massachusetts, Founder of the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville, Co-Founder of the Blue Ridge Prison Project and a graduate of the Community Dharma Leaders Program at the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in CA.
	Susan Stone,Ph.D., has been formally practicing Mindfulness for 25 years. She has taught at the university level for 20 years in Missouri and the Washington,DC area and currently teaches Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction at the University of Virginia Susan is author of At the Eleventh Hour, about Mindfulness and caregiving; The American Mosaic, about workforce diversity; and articles on Mindfulness. She founded a Mindfulness meditation group at Potosi Correctional Center in Missouri and was a co-leader of the St. Louis Insight Meditation Group. She leads Mindfulness meditation retreats and workshops in a multi-state area, co-leads the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville, and is on the teaching team of the professional End-of-Life-Care program at Upaya in Santa Fe NM. She is also a hospice volunteer.
	Kerry Leavitt, LCSW has practiced meditation since 1988. A graduate of Stanford University and Smith College’s School for Social Work, Kerry works as a private practice psychotherapist with a specialty in trauma. She serves on the adjunct faculty of Smith College’s Social Work Program. Kerry has offered consultation to trauma therapists both nationally and internationally in countries such as Nepal and the Republic of Georgia. Kerry’s articles about trauma treatment have appeared in numerous mental health journals. Kerry joined as a volunteer for the Blue Ridge Prison Project last year. She helps adapt traditional meditation practices to accommodate prisoners' extensive trauma-related vulnerabilities.
	Asha Greer, has 40 years of meditation experience and is a senior teacher of Sufi Ruchaniat International. Asha teaches both nationally and abroad having a vast network of students that look to her for guidance. She is the Co-Founder of the Lama Foundation in New Mexico and Co-Founder of Hospice of the Piedmont in Charlottesville Virginia. Also a registered nurse, Asha has 4 children and 2 grandchildren.