New York Botanical Garden

The New York Botanical Garden will collaborate with the James J. Peters Veterans Administration Medical Center Resilience and Wellness Center to create a new horticultural therapy intervention for veterans. The Garden will create multi-session programs for veterans that are designed to reduce symptoms of social isolation and foster healthy and active lifestyles. A licensed horticultural therapist will facilitate a series of sessions, each consisting of four weeks of seasonally based activities that include planting, seed starting, watering, weeding, cooking, and nutrition education. Each month, at the end of each cohort's session, there will be a culminating weekend celebration for the veterans and their families. Serving groups of 8-10 individuals per session, the project will serve up to 300 veterans. The garden will create a scalable program model for other organizations to support veteran populations with wellness opportunities using horticultural resources.