24 ForOregonState.org/Stater R E S E AR C H ILLUSTRATION BY SIMONE NORONHA PLANTING HOPE Paired with Master Gardeners, cancer survivors cultivate healthy habits and community. BY > KYM POKORNY Forthe first time,Carol Ruggeri is tending her own garden, a healthy vegetable plot that gives her respite. Tomatoes, zucchini squash, lemon cucumbers and snow peas look vigorous despite the variable weather this spring. “I lived in Newport for 29 years,” said Ruggeri, a pancreatic cancer survivor. “Between the slugs and the weather, you couldn’t grow anything. That’s why I’m so excited.” Ruggeri is a part of Hope Grows Here. Each spring, just in time for planting,the program matches cancer survivors like her with Master Gardeners who work with them from seed to harvest.The program is a collaboration between Oregon State Extension, the Moore Family Center and the Linus Pauling Institute. Samaritan Health Services and Pastega Regional Cancer Center help with recruitment. Laurie Labbitt, a Master Gardener since 2008 and Ruggeri’s mentor, became part of Hope Grows Here in its firstyearin 2021.The experience was so rewarding, she decided to do it again. “I like to garden and have lots of experience,” said Labbitt, who has been putting a trowel in the ground for most of her life. “I thought, ‘This is a program I can be part of.’” So far,it fits Ruggeri,too.She finds the community gardens at Calvin Presbyterian Church in Corvallis calm and serene. Birds lend their songs, and tall, spreading trees cast shade over a picnic table where gardeners can take a break. The sunny beds in the large garden look ready for the season, neat and tidy before the swelling of summer. “Just to be able to plant a plot and water it and watch it grow is so peaceful,” Ruggeri said. “There’s no one here in the morning, so I can wander around and look at the other gardens and get ideas and inspiration. It’s my moment of Zen when I get to be all by myself with the birds singing.” Hearing about Ruggeri’s healing moments in the garden is heartening to Candance Russo, project coordinator and program manager for the Moore Family Center, and Emily Ho, director of the Linus Pauling Institute and the principal investigator. Together, they wrote the $50,000 grant from Oregon Health and Sci-
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