Growing in Recovery With Community Gardens

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[00:00:03] Colby D`Onofrio: Welcome to Stocking the Pantry, a CalFresh Healthy Living podcast from Leah's Pantry. We'd like to acknowledge our funder, the CalFresh Healthy Living Program, an equal-opportunity employer and provider. On this show, we discuss any and all things community nutrition, food equity, and nutrition security. This is a space for thought leaders to share success stories and strategies for equity-centered and resilience-building initiatives.

We hope to foster collaboration and community, as well as leverage strengths among listeners, guests, and hosts as we share ideas and dreams of building a more equitable future where everyone has access to healthful nourishing food. Hello and welcome to Stocking the Pantry. I'm Colby.

[00:00:56] Tee Atwell: I'm Tee, and we're your hosts.

[00:00:59] Colby: In today's episode, we're excited to speak with Holly Lacell, who has been with Washington State University's Yakima County Extension as a SNAP-Ed senior coordinator for over 14 years. Holly provides both direct education and facilitates policy system and environmental changes, which we refer to as PSEs, that help participants lead healthier lives.

Part of these direct education and PSE efforts include implementing a community garden for people in treatment and substance use recovery. Gardening can be especially helpful for those in recovery as it provides a space for physical activity, socialization, and improved food access.

[00:01:45] Tee: Yes, gardening can be so healing, especially for individuals in recovery. It really helps to refocus our minds and bodies on tasks that promote calmness, self-satisfaction, and really improve self-confidence. Research has also shown that gardening counteracts social isolation, lowers blood pressure, and improves mental health, all aspects that are very important for people in recovery.

[00:02:12] Colby: Gardening for people in recovery centers can also promote food security. It's estimated that between 30% and 70% of people who use drugs report some level of food insecurity. It's also common for those with a substance use disorder to skip meals for days, further exacerbating health complications. This does present an opportunity for SNAP-Ed programming and implementers to be more involved in the therapeutic effects of gardening as it expands food access and teaches people food resource management skills.

[00:02:45] Tee: That's exactly what Holly Lacell is doing through various partnerships and programs. WSU Yakima County Extension partnered with Triumph Treatment Services, where Triumph received donations to initiate a raised-bed garden in 2017. Residents at this treatment center then were able to participate in a nine-lesson nutrition education series that taught low-cost meal preparation. It actually increased food literacy, mindfulness, self-reflection, and one of the most important, stress reduction.

[00:03:19] Colby: That's so awesome. I think we could all use a little more of all those things in our lives. Triumph Treatment Services, Pregnant, and Parenting Women's campuses, PPW for short, provides care for women in recovery. Most of the women at the treatment center are either pregnant, postpartum, or have very young children. The garden has become a space where both the women and their children can enjoy the benefits of being in green spaces and nature while providing the opportunity to meet and socialize with others from different treatment houses.

[00:03:53] Tee: Wow, that's amazing. WSU Yakima County Extension expanded its garden program to another Triumph Treatment Service campus, the James Oldham Treatment Center. This treatment center has up to 60 males in substance use disorder treatment and strives to improve the behavioral, emotional, and overall health of men seeking a sober life.

[00:04:16] Colby: We're excited to discuss these programs in more detail with our guest today, Holly Lacell. Holly, thank you so much for speaking with us today.

[00:04:27] Holly Lacell: Thank y'all so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here.

[00:04:30] Tee: Yes, thank you, Holly. I am very excited about this episode, so let's get started. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your experience working with WSU SNAP-Ed Extension?

[00:04:43] Holly: Yes. Like we said, I've been with the SNAP-Ed program for over 14 years now, which just has gone by so quickly and also seems like forever. [chuckles] I just started out as an hourly educator, maybe 10 hours a week, and now I'm the senior coordinator for the program here in Yakima. I've just really enjoyed the past 14 years. We started out teaching a lot of youth and a little bit of adults. As time went on, I discovered I really enjoyed teaching adults more than kids, which I think some people might say, "Oh, kids are so much better," but I have to disagree. I love the adults and I love meeting adults where they are. What better place to do that than a treatment center? That's a place they go to change their lives and we're there to help.

I also stumbled into gardening as I've been here through the SNAP-Ed program. I used to garden a lot with my grandpa when I was little, but since then, I have never had a garden of my own. My gardens through work have been amazing. I've just enjoyed this whole journey of 14 years so far.

[00:05:49] Colby: How cool is it that you get to say your gardens through work? I don't know anyone else. I sit in my home office, maybe people have a really cool office building, but I think your garden office might be the coolest one yet. [chuckles] We'd also love to learn a bit more about how did this community garden get started. How did you garner support from the community and get involvement for this project?

[00:06:18] Holly: Like you just said, every time I go to work and I get to step out into a garden space for work, I'm so blessed. [chuckles] What better office than a beautiful outdoor garden? This community garden started, as we mentioned, Triumph got a separate donation for a garden space that I think they did for a year or two, but they just didn't have enough capacity to keep up on their own.

Separately, as SNAP-Ed, we had started working there doing some direct education. Then just randomly I hired an hourly person who just so happened to be a master gardener. One day she was doing a class at The Pregnant and Parenting women's campus, saw this raised-bed empty space, and she's like, "Was that a garden? I'm a master gardener." Was like, "Could we maybe do something here?" It just has grown ever since.

At first, through SNAP-Ed, we didn't do gardening. It wasn't something that was really for us to do, but over the years across the board, people have realized that gardening not only brings the fresh produce and maybe some physical activity, which is what SNAP-Ed is all about, but it's just helpful in so many ways. That's really how we garnered the support, is we just started doing it because they were like, "Yes. Sure. Whatever. Go ahead. Do your little garden," [chuckles] but then once they saw that we had so much involvement from the participants on campus and how much it was changing their lives, honestly, then we started to get the champions at each program.

Those people, those champions within-- the employees who saw what we were doing and saw that it was really good and saw the impact it had and so we started cultivating those champions and saying, "Yes. Come on. Help us spread the word." [chuckles] The other thing that really got us the support and involvement from these programs was being consistent. They got this big donation to put in this raised bed, but then those people who donated just disappeared. They didn't help afterwards. They said, "Here's some money. Have fun." [chuckles]

By us being consistent and showing up year after year, season after season, they understood that, yes, we're here for you and they show up for us. I think those are the big things that have allowed us to have a gardening program over these years.

[00:08:31] Colby: I'm not surprised that the garden spoke for itself once it got going and then just generated the excitement on its own. Personally, I'd be all for it. [laughs] Now speaking of that garden, I'm really interested to hear a little bit more about it and what it looks like and smells like. Can you give our listeners a little tour of the garden? Tell us what it's like to be there. What's it look like? What's it sound like? How does it feel? Are there any smells in the garden?

[00:09:00] Holly: Yes. First of all, there are two gardens that we're doing exclusively this year especially. As you mentioned before, we have one at a women's campus and one at a men's campus. Both campuses are very different in the setup, the layout, the buildings, everything like that. Something that I've noticed is just another thing that the gardens do for us is that when you walk into the building, regardless of what campus you're on, it's clean. Everything's nice and tidy. They do a lot of work to make it fun and engaging like art on the walls, but it is still at its core clinical and a shared space that is shared amongst strangers, generally. Most people don't know the other people there.

If you can imagine that kind of environment, almost like a hospital, it's the best they can do, but it's not home. As you walk through these buildings, especially at the men's campus, it's one big long hallway. There's rooms off to each side, but then at the end of that hallway, you open the door and you walk out to the outside space and right there you see this garden. It just opens up. It feels like the whole world opens up. You can smell the fresh air.

As much as they clean in those places, it's a big shared space. When you walk out the doors and you just smell the fresh air, it's so impactful and you haven't even got to the garden yet. Otherwise, the gardens, it's a lot like a typical home garden would look like. It's a little bit bigger. They're probably 30 by 15-foot spaces, so they're a decent size but not huge. Those gardens are well-tended but also very haphazard, is what I'll say. They're not going to be on a cover of a magazine, and I've learned that that's okay. Honestly, that's better in some ways. They're very approachable, both gardens.

The men's garden, which is at the James Oldham Treatment Center, is an in-ground garden. A couple of years ago we amended the soil with a ton of compost. We just had men throwing a dozen or two dozen bags of compost over their shoulders to bring to this garden to amend the soil and make it really rich and inviting. That garden has trees that overhang one side, and the other side is just full of sun and life and opens out onto a nice big green lawn, which is just wonderful. I've had a lot of men come up and say that it's their favorite part of this outdoor space at that center.

The women's garden is really also very cool because we had a garden, that garden that was donated, as I mentioned before. It was a big donation that they got to have a nice raised-bed garden. Then three or four years into us doing that garden, they decided to build a new building right on top of our garden space. [chuckles] We had to put our gardening on hold for a couple of years at the women's campus. Then this year they finished the building. To my surprise, when I went for a tour, she's like, "Okay, this is our beautiful building. Now let's come out back and let me show you your garden space."

I said, "Oh, my garden space. I thought I was going to have to fight for this." It turns out they had purposefully designed a raised-bed garden for our garden program because they had seen the impact it had made over the years and they didn't want to lose that in building this new building. The women's campus has very little outdoor space. Basically, they have their porch area. There's no outdoor green space. This garden they were like, "No, we're going to build it for you. Here's the raised beds. Here's the water source, everything." It's just amazing. Both of these places, they're not magazine-worthy, but they are so special and inviting and important to these campuses.

[00:12:31] Tee: Thank you for sharing that. I know that we're talking about a space that might not be on the cover of a magazine, but also what I heard you say in there were these individuals that got to experience the garden, found reprieve, found a sense of safety, being able to center themselves. Just you even talking about going down this long corridor and then you just opening up to this beautiful garden. Instantaneously, I felt like I was also in that garden, and I felt lighter and brighter.

It is doing amazing things and a lot of research highlights that gardening is therapeutic and healing for people, especially for those that have chronic illnesses or disabilities. I know for me, I recently moved into a place with rocks in the backyard and a dog that loves to eat everything I try to plant in a pot. I could definitely tell you it has had a dimming effect for me physically, mentally, and spiritually to not have access to my garden anymore. Very powerful.

[00:13:43] Colby: Oh, Tee, that is so sad. Imagine just a dry rock garden and a cute little puppy just munching on everything that you try to put in. My cat is-- If anyone has a cat and tries to garden, cats are so funny where either they want to use your garden as a bathroom, don't love that, and or my cat continually tries to eat the leaves off of my plants then promptly vomits. Then, the next day, will come back and do the same thing. It's always this push and pull in me because I love my cat, but I also love my garden. I feel like they're siblings who aren't quite getting along.

I'm trying to give care and love to both of them because there really is something so therapeutic about care through cultivation. I'm so not surprised, Holly, that you were saying that some people find the garden to be their favorite outdoor space. There's such a calming sense when I'm gardening. Personally, I love to garden, but also sitting and looking at a garden is like someone's put love into this. Someone's put care into this. Someone is taking time out of their day to make sure that these plants are pruned. They're not going to get sick, they're not going to get disease, and they're cultivating fruit.

It's literally the definition of fruit of our labors. It feels so good when it comes time to harvest. Even if I'm not the one doing that cultivation, it's really inspiring to see a garden that you know someone else has put so much love into. Tee, your garden is going to come. I'm going to manifest it for you. I'm putting the vibes into the universe, [laughs] and I love that. Holly, can you dive into a little bit more about what kind of benefits the participants experience through the gardening process?

[00:15:30] Holly: Yes, absolutely. We've mentioned a few things already, but these are things that anybody who does a garden will experience and benefit from. I try to think from the treatment services perspective. People who are in substance use recovery have slightly different needs. Of course, they're going to get better nutrition, better access to fresh fruits and vegetables, more access to physical activity. SNAP-Ed is all about those things. Having the access to something that is less clinical and yet allows these people in substance use recovery to continue to develop social skills is huge.

It is one of the things that time and time again, the employees of these treatment centers bring up to me. Just getting the vitamin D, the sunshine, the physical activity, those things are amazing and important and it's what SNAP-Ed's all about but having a space to cry. I had a man come up to me just the other day when I was at the men's campus just pruning some of the garden. He was new. He was like, "Oh, did you do the garden space?" I'm like, "Yes, yes, we put it in." He says, "Well, I just want to thank you. I love this space. I cry here a lot. It's the only place I'll cry.'" [chuckles] I just said, "Oh, my goodness. Well, I'm so glad you have enjoyed it in the way that you needed to enjoy it."

It's a place that they can relieve stress. They can socialize. It can be a happy place. It doesn't have to be a place of crying. [chuckles] They can socialize. They can have a great time. It's something outside of their therapy sessions and their very down-and-dirty work on themselves where they can still practice responsibility. They can get out their anxieties. They can meditate. Just the practice of caring for something over and over, and then, like you said, seeing it bloom or seeing it not bloom and understanding that that's okay too. Sometimes it's not going to go the way you want.

All these things that we learn, some people don't. Some people get stuck and they need the space to experience these things. The garden can offer them that. That's been amazing to see, and I've seen it over and over again. Just the mental health, the relief that it is, the break that it gives for them to just have a break and just breathe for a little bit. On top of everything else we've already mentioned, those are huge things that touch everybody but are especially good for those in substance use recovery.

[00:17:56] Colby: I love that you've called the garden a safe space. A garden is such a safe space. I've never been scared in a garden. I've cried in a garden. I've been pissed off and been in a garden. I've been really happy, really grounded in a garden, but I've never felt unsafe. There's so many aspects to that. I feel like there's so many metaphors that gardening provides that can tie into our lives, root down to rise up kind of vibe. We water our seeds so that they can grow. Those are just a few. I love what you said about a garden being a place where people can work on their soft skills outside of a clinical setting.

Put that mindfulness into practice, do some emotional processing but in a space that's a little softer, a little more homey perhaps than in a therapeutic setting. Therapy's great too, and definitely necessary and important in recovery, but sometimes we just need a good space to cry, and a garden is an amazing place to do that. Could you tell us a little bit more about how you measure success in your programs? What types of outcomes are you looking for?

[00:19:11] Holly: Yes. It really depends. For specific outcomes, I always go to the program itself, the partnership, and ask them, "What are you looking for here?" There's lots of different things that different partnerships are going to want or need out of a garden space, so of course, I work really closely with the partner and figure that sort of stuff out. As a program myself, I also need to have some quantitative numbers to crunch at the end of the year, that sort of thing. I do keep track of how many people may have touched or interacted with the garden. I keep track of the pounds of produce that were produced from the garden. [chuckles]

The easiest way to do that, quick tip, is to buy a luggage scale and just have a plastic bag or some lightweight bag that you can measure your produce with right there on site. That's another fun thing, like, "Wow, we harvested 300 pounds of fresh produce this year." It sounds really good on a report. [chuckles] Then another number-crunching thing I keep track of is if there was anything donated, which we have had a lot of stuff donated over the years, and the partnerships that that might imply from the community, that's always really important to report and keep track of.

Honestly, to me, the biggest thing that I'm looking for in the outcome and what I try to report to my superiors and that I try to report to our programs is the stories. It's the stories that I hear every time I'm there. It's the impact that it's had to individuals. 300 pounds of produce sounds amazing, but when you hear a story from a woman about how she has never had a tomato off a vine and how different it tastes to a tomato from the grocery store and how she never thought she liked tomatoes, and now she loves them and she's going to grow them. She wants to be a tomato farmer.

I actually had a woman who just got so passionate about tomatoes, and learning how to prune them. She had never liked them before. That story is so much more impactful to me than, "Oh, I got 300 pounds of produce at the end of the season." That's what I'm looking for, at least, is how can I provide a safe space for anyone, whether it's the participants or the employees of that program to come learn and use the garden in whatever way that they need to use it because everybody's going to be different?

[00:21:36] Tee: Yes, I love that. It's really safe to say that you should probably stay curious in the garden because there are so many things that you can really discover and not just about produce but about yourself and being able to see the connections that we have and the cycles of a garden really reflect and translate to the cycles of our life and how we grow and thrive. Your participants in the garden are gaining insight into their health, physical health, mental health, spiritual health. Similarly, what lessons I will ask have you learned from working and teaching in the garden? How has the garden benefited you and other educators?

[00:22:20] Holly: First of all, everything that I've already described is something I've learned as well. I'm not immune to being holed up inside and not getting enough vitamin D. I'm not immune to having some anxiety or frustrations that would be helped by the garden space or that sense of calm and safety. I've learned all those things as well throughout the years. I think, if I had to think about just one or two things that I've learned as an educator, as a coordinator, participating in a garden space through programming with SNAP-Ed, one of the biggest things that I've learned is that nothing is perfect, and that's okay.

It's not going to be ever perfect. It's just never going to be. You have to put that out of your brain. Especially the SNAP-Ed, educator or other social work educator, you don't have time to make it perfect, and that is okay. The garden is there and it's going to be there and be what it needs, no matter if it's the pretty magazine cover, like I was talking about earlier. It doesn't have to be that way. No matter if everything lives or if most of the plants die off like one of my gardens did this year, I will say, nothing is perfect. The garden will thrive and if it doesn't, you and your participants will still learn something. That's been really important to me over the years.

The other big thing that I've learned, I think, from the gardening and working especially with the people in substance use recovery is that the garden space or the programming that you're providing means something different to every single person that walks through the metaphorical door of the garden. I have a story that's one of my favorite stories that I tell to anybody who is thinking about doing gardening and they're not sure if it's going to be worth the effort or they're, "I don't know if I'm ready," I always tell them this story and it's my favorite story.

One time I was working at The Pregnant and Parenting women's campus, and that is a long-term campus, or at least part of it is. The women there in the long-term section of campus can stay anywhere between three and six months in this recovery program. Those participants were always really fun to work with because they actually got to see the growth of the garden through the season. If you're only there for a month, you see a little bit of it, but those particular participants could be there and actually see and harvest produce.

One day I was there and I was just puttering around the garden as you do, pulling up little weeds or doing a little bit this and that, and this woman came. It was just open garden time, so there was no curriculum or anything. We were just enjoying the space. She came up and she started doing the same, just puttering around, and she mentioned to me, she said, "Oh, this will probably be the last time I see you. I'm actually graduating really soon." I'm like, "Oh, congratulations. It's so amazing." It's a huge life event for these people to graduate from such a long program. She said, "Yes, one of the things that I had to do for this program was I have to do a report or a presentation."

They have to actually answer all sorts of questions about how they're going to deal with life and just the skills that they've learned. Part of that was picking out what their higher power was as part of this program. That was one of the questions that was asked. It was their cornerstone piece of the report or the presentation. It didn't have to be religious or spiritual even. It just had to be some kind of bigger, higher power outside of themselves that they would work towards or that inspired them.

As we were sitting there just picking bugs off of leaves and just enjoying the sunshine, she said, "You know what I picked is I picked nature, and I picked nature as my higher power because of this garden and what we've done here. Every time you come, I've just learned so much and it's shown me that nature and growing things is important to me. It's something I want to see continue. It's something I want to do in my life as I leave this place and continue on day to day. I want to have a garden. I want to see nature grow and have it be more meaningful to me in my life."

Just having somebody say that to me, having somebody say that their higher power is now they've identified it as something that they're going to work towards is nature because of the programming that I did, it really had an impact on me because I realized that you don't know. I was just puttering around the garden harvesting a few basil leaves here and there. I could never have imagined that somebody would have such an experience with our garden. That's really something that I've learned is that you can't know. Sometimes it feels like, "Oh, we're just teaching these little lessons about unit pricing," or, "Make sure you eat your fruits and vegetables."

It seems so simple to us, but you can never know the impact that you're making on other people. That's, of course, just every day, no matter what you're doing. It doesn't have to be at your job. It can be at home. It can be on the street. You never know what a kind word or a flower, a sprig of basil, the smell of mint, you never know what that's going to do for a person. You just really, truly don't. That's probably the biggest thing that I've learned and that I've taken away over the years is that we do do a lot and gardens are a great way to give back.

[00:27:52] Colby: I love that story. That actually is not the first time I've heard someone in recovery say that their higher power, whatever they want to call it, is nature. What a great way to bring nature into an urban environment with a garden. Like you said, you don't know how it's going to affect someone and like gardening, you put in a little bit of work, a little bit of work, a little bit of work, and then it takes off. You start to see the sprouts. You start to see the sprouts turning into a plant. I always remember when I see my first tomato bud, I get so excited, or my first little zucchini poking out, I'm like, "Oh my God, it's been worth it."

All this time that I've just been putting in a little bit of effort, giving a little bit to the garden, it starts to come back. That is just such a wonderful feeling, and I feel that same way. Like you were saying, you don't know when it's going to affect someone, but at the same time, the more positivity we put out, the more positivity we're going to get back. What advice would you give to other SNAP-Ed implementers who want to start a community garden, and what do you hope to see in the future for your gardening program?

[00:29:03] Holly: I really thought about this and I thought about what kind of advice I would give to somebody who's just starting because I really had to think about it. It's been a while. I really have to remember that I grew up around gardens. My grandpa gardens. He had a huge garden, at least as big as the ones that I have at Triumph now. That was just his personal garden, but gardening can be really intimidating for a lot of people.

I've met a lot of SNAP-Ed educators that have said, "Wow, that's so amazing what you're doing." I think in my own head, wow, this is just a simple garden with just a few things, but to them, it's something that they could never do. I say, "You know what? No, no, no. I guarantee you, you can do a garden." It does not have to be a big garden. It does not have to be a 30-foot by 15-foot space like I have right now. You can do a gardening program with a few large pots on a balcony or a porch or whatever space you have. As long as there's sunlight and a place to put a little bit of dirt, you can do some gardening. It does not have to be perfect. It does not have to be pretty, but any of those will work.

First of all, you don't have to do a big space. You can do small spaces. You can do window gardens with kiddos. There's all sorts of innovative gardens. There's hay bale gardens and trellis gardens where it grows up a wall. There's so many different options. Don't feel like you have to do something big or elaborate, but you can do it. A second piece of advice, I would say, reach out to your local master gardener program. Most areas have one at least somewhat close by. Even if you can't find one close by, they have tons of information online.

They're a really reliable source of really great garden knowledge. Then of course, there's so much out there on the internet. All of it's free information. Any stumbling block you do encounter you can probably find the answer for free. It's all out there. Lastly, just do it, just start. Don't have the fear that it's going to fail because you know what? It probably will. [chuckles] It'll probably fail the first year, and that's okay. [laughs] I will say that even after all the years that we've done gardening, this year with the new raised-bed garden space that they gave me at the women's campus, 80% of that failed.

Most of the plants are dead. The watermelon are doing wonderful, but I didn't realize that they had bought poor-quality soil when they put in those raised beds. They couldn't have known. They just got whatever they could afford. I didn't know because I'm not a master gardener and I couldn't look at the garden soil and just say, "Oh, yes, that's poor soil." That's okay. You know what? Those women have enjoyed that garden space. There is not a weed in sight. We have three to four watermelons doing amazingly. That's still amazing. It doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't have to be big. No matter what, there's going to be value in that space.

In the future for our own gardening spaces here in Yakima, I would love to see it expand more. Both campuses do have space to actually expand square footage-wise, the garden spaces. I would love to get some more donations for things that are a little bit unnecessary but would bring a lot of value. I'd love to have signage. I'd love to have a nice wood sign with a name for each garden that the participants come up with for themselves because I think that really brings in the community aspect and helps them feel a little bit of ownership over those garden spaces.

I actually just met the new lead chef at the women's campus just last Friday. I just met him and he is excited to do composting. He wants to have a compost in his kitchen for the garden space. He wants to work with me next year to really pick out plants that he can use within the kitchen on campus to supplement and add to his dishes. That's really exciting.

Finally, big pie in the sky excited dreams for future, I would love to see a full circle garden space where the gardens were big enough that the participants could actually learn not only social skills and things like that but actually learn job skills and have a booth at the farmer's market or something similar to where it could come full circle.

They could see the whole cycle. They could actually sell their produce, even if that money just bought supplies for the next gardening season maybe. I would love to see something like that because I think that would really come full circle and you could just really see the whole cycle, and it would give them job skills that they could put to use right away when they re-entered the world. That's my pie-in-the-sky idea for now.

[00:33:40] Tee: You definitely gave us a great understanding and a great picture of what it looks like to not be intimidated and just go for it. I know, for me, when I first started gardening, I was intimidated. I had a mom that had a green thumb and I felt like mine was a little yellow-brown. When I was able to get in a garden, it was the power of connection that really helped. I think everything just take off and strive. Then something that I really was able to understand in that process was life is not all roses. It is through those challenges that we do grow.

Within that, it was such a metaphorical experience for me because it really translated into life and understanding how we go about life and how we keep going and pushing and really putting in energy into the things that will, at the end of the day, sustain us when you're thinking about a garden. It's teaching us those life skills, but it's also giving us that sustenance that we need to also survive amongst the connection and those social aspect.

It is full circle and you already put it out there in the universe. What you want to see come to fruition will definitely come about. The universe has heard you and I think really looking at how it does meet full circle is so powerful for everyone, especially individuals in substance use recovery. Switching gears a little bit here before we go, Holly, we would love to ask you, what do you stock in your pantry, figuratively and/or literally?

[00:35:37] Holly: In my pantry, I think pantry basics, staples, what do you need every day? Definitely, in my actual real pantry, I have to have rice and beans and a variety of both. As long as I have a good variety of rice and beans, I can add anything and make anything out of that. [chuckles] Garbanzo beans and black beans and pinto beans and all sorts of different kinds of rice. Oh, got to have at least those two. [chuckles]

Figuratively, along the same lines of what are the basic staples you need in your toolbox? Creativity, like a creative outlet, is what I need just as a person. I need a space, and I mean, the garden is a great space for that too, but I have to have a space that I can do something that's just artistic and creative. That's just the sort of person that I am. If I have that and some rice and beans, I'm happy. [chuckles]

[00:36:32] Colby: I hear you on that. If I have a can of beans and a set of paints and a garden on top of it, I'm happy as a clam. [chuckles] Holly, it's been such a great time chatting with you today and hearing more about your program and your garden. How can our audience get in touch with you if they want to learn more about this work?

[00:36:55] Holly: The best way to get in touch with me is definitely through email. It's pretty simple, it's my name, H-O-L-L-Y, dot L-A-C-E-L-L. That's [email protected]. Everywhere else things are changing, our website is changing recently, but email is one of the best ways to get ahold of me. [chuckles]

[00:37:17] Tee: Thank you so much for joining us today, Holly, and really sharing your story and all of your wisdom. Really appreciate it. It's been very powerful and inspiring.

[00:37:28] Holly: Thank you all so much for having me. I've had a absolutely wonderful time talking to you.

[00:37:33] Colby: Thank you so much for joining us, Holly, [music] and thank you for tuning in listeners. Join us next time for more fruitful conversations. Until then, ciao.

[00:37:45] End Announcement: Thank you for hanging with us. Do you know a thought leader or someone doing great work in your community? We would love to interview them and we would love to hear from you. Find us online at leahspantry.org, on Instagram at @leahspantryorg or email us at [email protected]. This podcast is a product of Leah's Pantry made possible by funding from the United States Department of Agriculture and their supplemental nutrition assistance program, an equal opportunity provider and employer. Visit CalFreshhealthyliving.org for healthy living tips.

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Stocking the Pantry invites guests with a wide variety of opinions and perspectives. Guest opinions are their own and do not represent the views of Leah's Pantry.

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