GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. The Berkshire Community Land Trust announced two additions to the Board of Trustees: Sarah Downie and Regi Wingo.

 

Downie Downie joins the Board as a professional representative. Downie is a partner in the law firm of Weil Gotshal & Manges, LLP in New York City, where she concentrates her practice on pension and other employee benefit matters. She is recognized as a leading employee benefits lawyer in New York by Chambers USA, is named among Lawdragon's "500 Leading U.S. Employment Lawyers" and is recognized by Super Lawyers. 

 

She served as Chair of the New York City Bar Association's Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation Committee and is a member of the Steering Committee of the New York Chapter of Worldwide Employee Benefits Network. She regularly speaks and writes on all aspects of pensions and employee benefits law, and is active on her firm's retirement plan investment committee.  

 

Downie volunteers her time on numerous pro bono legal matters, including work with Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, International Refugee Assistance Program and Lawyers' Alliance. Downie is a dual citizen of Canada and the United States. After completing her legal education in Canada, she moved to New York in 1999. In 2021, she and her partner moved to the Berkshires.

 

 Wingo joins the Board as a community representative. Wingo is the Prevention Team Leader and Outreach Educator at the Elizabeth Freeman Center. He began working with at-risk youth in 1999 as a founding member of the Railroad Street Youth Project in Great Barrington, where he developed and supervised the Urban Hieroglyphics art program. In 2010 he joined the Elizabeth Freeman Center as Team Leader for its Berkshire Violence Protection Program and has worked in over fourteen Berkshire County middle and high schools and colleges, specializing in programming on health relationships, healthy sexuality, sex education, bystander response, social responsibility and cultural and gender norms. His team was recently awarded one of the first State funded grants to work specifically on healthy relationships in local schools, looking to use dialogue education and harm reductive sex education. He is a well-known community artist who also uses his theatrical talents to effectively engage both youth and adults and to motive action and change. 

 

He recently joined an intentional community in Alford that is looking to focus on food sovereignty and agroforestry. He is a Berkshire native with a deep love for the land and community of the Berkshires.

 

 A Community Land Trust is governed by a three-part volunteer Board of Trustees. The Board is designed to be representative and balanced in its administration of the organization's activities and assets. The Boards of the Berkshire Community Land Trust and Community Land Trust in the Southern Berkshires are twelve residents of Southern Berkshire County. Four leasing member representatives are elected by other leaseholders. Four community representatives are elected by the general membership. Four professional representatives are appointed by the Board itself for their expertise.