Meet Our Team
Lucy MacGregor & Jelena Popovic
Lucy MacGregor (left in picture) is an adventurer through the joys and intensity of human life. While honoring that we each travel our own unique journey, Lucy believes that each of us are deeply and intricately connected to one another. She believes that we awaken to the fullness of of living when we are present with open eyes, nurturing inclusive hearts, and the support and challenge of authentic community. Her work is to support individuals and communities as they adventure in this “one wild and precious life”.
In her work, Lucy combines her experience as a classroom teacher, her background in adventure based learning, and her training in mindfulness, yoga and circle facilitation. She calls on the power of nature, storytelling, and the wisdom inherent within groups.
Lucy, holds a M. Ed, Mindfulness for Educators, and is an accredited Montessori teacher. Her facilitation style draws from Genuine Contact, The Circle Way, and the Art of Hosting. She is a certified Children’s Yoga instructor, certified Mindful Schools instructor, and a Relax Kids coach. She is a classroom teacher at FernLeaf Community Charter School.
Lucy continues to be challenged, inspired, uplifted, and opened by her own journey through life, and is incredibly grateful to the entire community of beings travelling with her.
Jelena (Yelena) Popovic (right in picture) is best described as a “hearticulator" and an "experienced beginner", who inspires others to search for their inner genius with curiosity and compassion. She is a life-long inquirer with a passion for peace education. She is a mom, Teaching Peace in Schools leadership council lead for The Peace Alliance, U.N certified cross-cultural facilitator, Mindful Schools mentor, brain science buff, school psychologist, Relax Kids trainer/coach and mindfulness educator.
She holds a graduate degree in school psychology from Tufts University, but is most proud of listening to the wisdom of a third grade boy who questioned her purpose and told her she is much better at teaching with a “breathing ball” (aka, Hoberman sphere) than giving that “boring test”. Now Jelena spends most of her time in classrooms connecting with educators and students, teaching mindfulness (with and without the “breathing ball”) and with Lucy MacGregor helps design customized, sustainable and embedded implementation of mindfulness practices within educational settings though their unique Communities Of Practice model. She also co-facilitates mindfulness workshops and retreats for educators, trains others on the Relax Kids model, co-facilitates cross-cultural dialog for Soliya and finds herself immersed in numerous and perpetual pilot projects.
Jelena is a lover of books, especially pop-up picture books and poetry, and is a devoted admirer of Renaissance art. She finds joy and gratitude in everyday, ordinary moments. People with kind, beautiful hearts inspire her. She tends to question everything and her most frequent response is “Don’t know. How might we work on it and grow together?”
What we do
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Design to Connect, LLC. is an educational consulting organization assisting schools in skillful, integrated, and sustainable whole-school implementation of mindfulness and peace education practices. Lucy and Jelena work in person and online, with children, youth, educators, and school communities around the globe. |