Growing Veterans – Farm-based Peer Support
May 1st, 2017
Justin Blotsky picks beets in Mt. Vernon, Washington on Wednesday, September 7, 2016. Photo by Clay Lomneth / The American Legion.
“I’ve known a lot of people who have been to combat and came back quite changed,” explained Kenny Holzemer, a 22-year retried navy air crewman and the executive director for of Growing Veterans.
Growing Veterans is a Washington-based organization that aims to help veterans successfully transition into civilian life through sustainable organic farming. Launched in 2012, co-founders Marine Corps veteran, Chris Brown, and mental health counselor, Christina Wolf, recognized that farming can be both a therapeutic activity for returning veterans and a way to explore a potential new career path.
“It’s a really great opportunity to bring the healing powers of nature to people,” explained Wolf. “And the healing powers of having a community of people who you can rely on.”
Recent studies have looked at the mental health benefits of gardening. But Wolf says she doesn’t need any scientific research to know farming can be therapeutic. “Those of us who do it just know instinctively that it helps us feel better. Researchers are like, ‘How can we study it and prove it?’ But it’s just something so innate to people. We just get it.”
The organization has also developed its own three-day peer-support training for staff members, volunteers, and anyone else interested in taking the course.
“As we were working with a lot of veterans on our farms, we found that a lot of people wanted to be kind of a support system for others, but they didn’t feel like they had the skills to do that,” explained Wolf. In addition to the veterans who enter the program as farmers and volunteers, veterans make up eighty percent of the organization’s staff.
“Our training is really on both sides. How to be a helper to someone else, and how to get help for yourself when you need it,” Wolf explained. “We just see that as a normal human experience. It’s not a bad thing for me to support you—it’s just a human thing. We all need that sometimes.”
Find out how to help Growing Veterans efforts at:
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