Donna Dufresne is an educator, teacher, writer, and historian from the “Quiet Corner” of Connecticut. She is a member of the Windham/Willimantic NAACP and currently involved in several historical research projects to educate students and adults about the rich and diverse understory of local history. Her research and writing has helped to shed light on the soldiers of the Connecticut 29th Colored Regiment in Windham County who were of African and Nipmuc descent, and some of their ancestors who were enslaved in the region during the 18th century. Ms. Dufresne has worked with the Wyndham Land Trust to install a memorial stone for the enslaved Africans buried in the Randall/Higginbotham Cemetery in Pomfret and is writing a book about how we can interpret American History through a local lens.
Ms. Dufresne is a retired teacher with over 35 years of teaching experience and a master’s in Gifted Education. She is currently the owner of Out of the Box Learning, offering enrichment programs to the home school community, and after school programs in theater and songwriting based on historical, social justice, and civil rights content.
