Welcome
to a Great Idea
The Trillium Collaborative was established in 2023. Our mission is to provide accessible, holistic, individualized out-of-hospital maternity care to families who value and desire it.
To fulfill this mission, donations to the Trillium Collaborative will:
provide financial stability for Trillium House and help fund its operations.
fund midwifery care and use of the birth center for families.
help pay educators, so that Trillium House classes remain free and open to all.
We intentionally call our organization a “Collaborative” with the idea that our community would collectively contribute support, gifts, and talents that we believe will improve maternity outcomes in our region. Trillium House provides a physical place where families can access the Midwives Model of Care™ and where practitioners offering that care can work. Having this physical space also provides a chance to demonstrate the benefits of this model to the entire community.
(Read more about the Midwives Model of Care™ on our FAQs page).
Healthy mothers and babies have statistically better outcomes when cared for by a trained midwife. If you support expanding access to this individualized, holistic care for expectant mothers and their babies, please use the form below to help fund our work.
You can make a one-time donation, or become a monthly donor with any amount you choose.
Keep Up With the News
Please fill out the form below to join our mailing list and become part of the Collaborative community. You’ll get updates from Trillium House about classes and events, plus news from the Trillium Collaborative about our programs and new opportunities.
The Trillium Collaborative is a 501c3 nonprofit organization with
EIN: 88-3886248
Board of Directors
Leslie Payne, CPM, President
Leslie co-founded Trillium House with Julia Bradner. The two of them also created the Trillium Collaborative to support the birth center and to help make holistic, out-of-hospital care more accessible. As a child, Leslie was fascinated by birth and has been drawn to birth work for as long as she can remember. She had been working as a community midwife for around 30 years before starting the process of retirement in 2024. She has been a Certified Professional Midwife since 2004. She also helped in the effort to modernize Virginia law as it applied to midwifery. In 2005, that effort resulted in the first state law to create a licensing system for community midwives.
Leslie’s vision for a birth center in Lynchburg grew out of her work at the state level, where she saw other midwives doing this, and attending home births for many years. Lynchburg has always had home birth available, and it seemed the time was ripe for a birth center. The goal of her midwifery practice was to help families design and realize a plan for maternal and newborn care that is faithful to the traditional goals of midwifery and to The Midwives Model of Care. Those goals and that model continue to inform her work with Trillium House and the Trillium Collaborative today.
As much as Leslie is devoted to her calling of midwifery, her favorite and most important job has always been that of mother to her five children. As of 2024, she and her husband Kim now have twelve grandchildren and their lives are full!
Kimball (“Kim”) Payne, Secretary/Treasurer
Kim is a former local government manager, having served as the Lynchburg City Manager for fifteen years and as the Spotsylvania County Administrator for fourteen years. He is a retired Naval Officer and was an adjunct professor at Virginia Tech, teaching a graduate class in local government management. Since shortly after his retirement in 2016, he has worked part-time as an Executive Manager with The Berkley Group, providing executive recruitment, retreat facilitation, and organizational assessment services to local governments. Kim holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Duke University and Master of Planning and Master of Arts in Public Administration degrees from the University of Virginia.
Trillium House and the Trillium Collaborative are important to Kim because, as Leslie’s spouse, he shares her vision of supporting women and families in having a safe and positive out-of-hospital birthing experience. Kim and Leslie have five children and twelve grandchildren. He is a Rotarian, serves on several local, regional, and state boards, and is an active member of Holy Cross Catholic Church in Lynchburg. When not otherwise engaged, he enjoys fly-fishing, gardening, and reading.
Bevin Alexander, Esq.
Bevin was raised in Charlottesville and Richmond, Virginia, and on a farm near Bremo Bluff, Virginia. He attended the University of Virginia, where he majored in both Anthropology and History, as well as played varsity Men’s Soccer. Following two years of experience with social service agencies, he attended the Washington & Lee University School of Law, where he was on the Law Review.
He began his career clerking for a justice of the Virginia Supreme Court and has subsequently practiced for more than forty years in Lynchburg, first as a partner at Edmunds & Williams, then by helping to establish the firm Freeman, Dunn, Alexander. He opened a new office in 2020 and became a solo practitioner under the firm name Bevin Alexander Law, PLC.
Bevin is pleased to lend his legal expertise to the organization as a board member. He also enjoys pitching in by running errands, or directing traffic at an event, or anything else that helps make Trillium House and the Trillium Collaborative successful.
Julia Bradner, CPM
Julia is a certified doula CD(DONA), certified childbirth educator LCCE, birth assistant for out-of-hospital births, and a certified professional midwife (CPM). She is a co-founder of Trillium House, along with Leslie Payne. She is also the director of New Life Doula Services and she teaches Prep 4 Birth childbirth education series of classes. What her fifteen years of experience with birth services has taught her, she says, is that "being a professional birth worker is not just a hobby, or interest, but a passion."
For the first three years of Trillium House's existence, Julia served as the Director of Services. When she became a CPM in 2024, she transitioned to being a board member of the Trillium Collaborative.
Julia and her husband Matt have been married more than twenty years and they have five children. More information about Julia's midwifery services, doula services, and childbirth education classes is at New Life Birth Services.
Jane Celeste, PhD, HBCE
Jane Celeste has a PhD in art history from Rice University and has been transitioning out of academia and the museum world and fully into the birth world since 2020. She is a HypnoBirthing educator, certified birth and postpartum doula, and is currently working on a certification in biomechanics for pregnancy and birth. Jane is also taking prerequisite classes to pursue a nursing degree with the goal of eventually becoming a certified nurse midwife.
As soon as Jane moved to the Lynchburg area in 2022, she immediately reached out to Trillium House. She believes that women should birth in the location and with the provider that makes them feel seen, heard, and safe, as these factors can greatly affect someone’s birth experience, which not only impacts that woman for the rest of her life, but her partner, baby, family, and even has the possibility of influencing the wider community.
When she’s not working with families or continuing her education, Jane is usually experimenting with new recipes, being amazed by her son’s Lego creations, or helping her daughter into her latest dress-up trends.
You can find out more about Jane at her website www.fernandsage.com, including a link to her recently published, peer-reviewed article in Birth: Issues in Perinatal Care, which is titled “Toward a Semiotics of Midwifery: Multimodal Communication’s Effects on Accessibility, Equity, and Power Dynamics.”
Jordan Parke
Jordan Parke is a Roanoke native. He graduated from Hampden-Sydney College where he played football. He is a proud dad and husband. He enjoys watching Alabama football and all things technological. One of his proudest moments is when he witnessed his daughter’s home birth and got to catch her in a birthing pool!
Raven Parke, PA-C
Raven Parke is a board-certified physician assistant at Igata and Parke Primary Care Practice in Forest, Virginia. She is originally from Maryland, where she attended the University of Maryland, College Park and graduated with a bachelor's degree in Public Health Sciences. She then moved to Roanoke, where she met her now husband, Jordan. They now live in Forest with their daughter, and goldendoodle, Cooper. She enjoys iced coffee, football, fall weather, and wearing bows. Her favorite hobbies include chasing her toddler, reading, and cheering for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Debbie Wong, CPM
Debbie Wong is a Certified Professional Midwife. While retired from maternity care, she continues to provide postpartum support to families in the Charlottesville area. Debbie received her midwifery education from Birthingway College of Midwidery. She also has a MS in Biology.
Debbie is proud to have been part of the Trillium House and the Trillium Collaborative since their conception. Trillium House and Trillium Collaborative have become vital parts of the Lynchburg community by offering great choice and autonomy to one's maternity care. Since retiring from clinical midwifery care, Debbie teaches at a Montessori preschool, goes on long walks, and knits.
Kiristen Younger, MHA
Kiristen Younger is the Associate Director of Risk Management and Safety and Infection Preventionist at Johnson Health Center in Lynchburg. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Health Science from Ferrum College in 2014 and completed her Master of Healthcare Administration from Walden University in 2023.
Kiristen is passionate about her involvement with Trillium House and the Trillium Collaborative, as it provides mothers and parents access to personalized care during one of life’s most precious and vulnerable moments.
In her free time, Kiristen enjoys true crime and spending quality time with her husband, Justin, their daughter, Emersyn, and their two dogs, Kyah and Masin.