Village Ethos
The PassingOn Collective has a holistic response to these moments of transition – we call it the Village Ethos. It honors the role of peers in healthy transitions and restores what fragmentation has taken from most of us: the ability to meet these transitions with collective strength.
Life is a series of passages across thresholds. The threshold asks something paradoxical of us: to sit with the moment while passing through to a new place. The village ethos embraces both of those invitations.
Photo credit: “Off to a New Home” by Michael Coghlan, CC BY-SA 2.0
Signature Programs
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Listening Circle
The Listening Circle is a structured, compassionate way for communities to gather in the wake of significant loss or transition. Your group learns — and models — the practice of deep listening, creating a safe environment where everyone can speak from the heart and be heard without interruption, judgment, or pressure to solve anything. Read about a group that used Listening Circles during a threshold moment in their community.
Infographic
Case Brief
Legacy Forward
Legacy Forward is for individuals, couples, teams or affinity groups entering milestone transitions – birthdays, health changes, role shifts, or external pressures. In this guided retreat, participants engage in self-reflection, deepen their relationships, and look at life through the threshold with clarity and intention. Through a collective process that’s both heavy and light, people help one another to uncover the themes, turning points, and emotional truths that have shaped their lives – and discover what it means to live their legacy forward.
Care Village
The Care Village is a 1-2 year peer formation program that strengthens the capacity of a community or organization to meet its threshold moments. Small groups of peers learn the skills necessary to support one another through transition, sharpen emotional intelligence, and strengthen the ties between them. The program builds and embeds the village infrastructure so that it can be fully owned by the community or organization.
To talk to us about bringing the Listening Circle, Legacy Forward, and Care Village to your family, community, or workplace, email us: info@passingoncollective.com
Our Team
Argerie Vasilakes, MEd MPOD
Co-founder
Argerie is a community and organizational design leader, weaving strategy with care to help groups flourish. Trained in Positive Organization Development (Case Western Reserve University) and Adult Education (Cleveland State University), she has guided culture change and grief work by strengthening the village of support in both for-profit and mission-oriented communities. In March 2026, her co-authored book chapter, Early Innovators for Environmental Sustainability, was published — it describes her role centering well-being in a company’s sustainability efforts. As a community radio producer early in her career, Argerie learned how to get to the essence of people’s personal stories — a skill she brings to her listening and writing.
Priscilla J. Callos, MDiv BCC (ret.) CT
Co-founder
Priscilla is a thanatologist and chaplain, with degrees in English from The Ohio State University and Divinity from Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, and an executive certificate in Social Innovation Design from the University of Pennsylvania. Her experience in grief and transition work spans the country: she brought her flavor of empathy, creativity, and offbeat ritual to hospitals and hospices in Burlington (Vt.), Boston, Cleveland, Columbus, and San Francisco. Since 2025, she has been working with an initiative to make religious spaces more accessible to disabled and neurodivergent kids. A lifetime ago, Priscilla was an avid party thrower; now, she hosts small-scale dance parties for her spouse, their two boys, and a long-suffering cat.
Linda M. Krasienko, M.A. COTA/L LPM
ambassador
Linda is a lifelong community advocate, developer, and relationship-builder, working in direct care with people in crisis. Among her innumerable service-oriented accomplishments, she is the founder of A Place for Us Development and the nonprofit It’s About Us, both based in Cleveland, Ohio, focusing on the needs of the senior LGBTQ+ community. Linda is who Fred Rogers’ mother was referring to when she told him, “Look for the helpers.”
Working With Us
We know a thing or two about cooperative learning, narrative design, grief literacy, spiritual integration, and community building; but most importantly, we love doing the work. Whether it’s with a couple looking at milestone year, or with an organization enduring painful change, we collaborate with you to strengthen the fabric of your village. It’s a process — as it should be! Because together, we’re building sustaining practices to get you through this threshold and the ones to come.
“Soft” Skills Matter
Presence, empathy, and active listening are how we demonstrate care for each other, and communities of care thrive. It’s why these skills are the heart of our work.
Collaborative Design
Every family, group, and organization has unique needs in their unique situation. With a co-creative model, we’re working together to build your path forward.
Authenticity
Being authentic is risky! We bring our whole selves to this process because we want you to bring your whole selves, too. It’s how we grow well together.
Testimonials
We don’t really talk about legacy in our family. So I wasn’t sure if my grown children would understand what has been important to me in my lifetime. But the Legacy Letter produced by The PassingOn Collective gets to the core of it and will speak for me.
Lana Cowell,
Activist and Matriarch
The Listening Circle experience will be so very meaningful for chaplains and spiritual directors, pastors, etc. The facilitators are confident and knowledgeable and express themselves with such feeling and compassion. I really hope a great number of folks will take part in these gatherings. They will not be sorry!
Pastor Carolyn Horvath,
Hope House of Prayer
We can take the PassingOn practices into our organizations to replace busyness with spaciousness. We can be reminded that in doing so, we are actually more productive, our relationships improve, and we can connect to each other and to purpose at work.
Jules Myers, MSOD
Ohio OD Network
Let’s Connect
Fill out our contact form and we’ll schedule a call!
Resources
Find clear, compassionate tools to support you—whether you are preparing, actively caregiving, grieving, or finding your way toward renewal—as you navigate end‑of‑life or other transitional planning for yourself or someone you love.