MENOMINEE, MICH. – Memorial Day has come and gone, but the peak season of serving veterans and caregivers who have experienced trauma in the line of duty through garden therapy is just beginning at Raven Wood Gardens in Menominee County, Mich.
Lou Anne and Craig Bates developed the organization to help others who have survived trauma find a place where people care about them and their mental health.
“A lot of veterans go to these clubs and hang out for an hour meeting. They don’t get much from it, not much camaraderie,” said Lou Anne Bates, president of the organization. Navy veteran Alfonse Van Hese is vice president.
Raven Wood Gardens serves about 100 veterans a year within a peaceful place to enjoy the outdoors. The 43-acre spread at 4983 North M-35, north of the city of Menominee, offers trails for day hikes and lit-evening walks, garden plots where veterans can work with the soil and watch their gardens grow, three ponds, the Heart and Soil gift shop and special events.
“We plant with a purpose. We prepare with a purpose. Our mission is to make sure the veterans are truly cared for,” said Lou Anne Bates, a former Pampered Chef sales representative who quit her job to become a caretaker for Army veteran Craig, 80, who owned and operated Smart Choice Lawn Care in Menominee and also served as a police officer and detective for 30 years.
Garden therapy helped Craig overcome post-traumatic stress disorder and severe hearing loss, and the couple have opened their gardens to help others manage trauma and anxiety.
Lou Anne said her stint on a rescue squad years ago gave her first-hand experience with trauma. “It can come from childhood. It could come from a bad marriage. It could come being in the military. It could come from being a cop. It could come from being on the rescue squad. You just never know what you’re going to see,” she said.
She also understands what veteran caregivers go through. “I couldn’t leave Craig because he had PTSD and severe hearing loss,” she said. Raven Wood Gardens offers a two-day caregivers workshop each year.
Special events help to bring other caregivers and veterans together. Lou Anne is excited about the annual low-impact post-4th of July celebration held in mid-July, which features a light show without the booms and bangs that can trigger post-traumatic stress among veterans.
At other times, the Gardens limit access to ensure the grounds remain peaceful. “We believe in helping one person every day. We’re not about quantities,” Lou Anne said.
Access to the gardens, which include indoor greenhouses, outdoor garden plots, container gardens, an outdoor kitchen and wooded trails, is by appointment. The grounds provide plenty of space for quiet reflection, cutting firewood, tending garden plots, planting flower-and-flag baskets, and engaging in yoga, mindfulness and reiki, a Japanese spiritual healing fitness activity.
Many veterans find working in the gardens soothing. They get to know each other through activities at the gardens, Bates said.
The couple have enlisted the help of others, such as yoga instructor Sally Van Eyck, who teaches trauma-senative yoga for veterans. The goal is for the veterans to leave trauma in the past and stay in the moment through breathing exercises and mindfulness.
Van Eyck described Raven Wood Gardens as “the most peaceful place I can picture being,” in a video on the organization’s website.
While helping others, Lou Anne said operating the gardens have helped her and her husband. “My husband and I have been helped through Covid, through counseling, through the care of people who have stepped up for us.”
By soliciting small businesses to sponsor a garden plot, the Bates offset some of the cost of maintaining the gardens.
Lou Anne emphasizes the Raven Wood Gardens doesn’t grow marijuana. “We have never been about pot shops. We did an event called Erase the Stigma because we knew marijuana was coming to Menominee, so we did an event to educate about that plant,” she said. “We’re not about marijuana, we never were, but there are rumors people like to spread and we’d like to put that to rest.” The gardens are gated and secured with 16 cameras, Lou Anne said.
Camping isn’t allowed at the Gardens.
Before she met Craig 18 years ago, Lou Anne said, “I was a Betty Baptist. I didn’t drink. I didn’t smoke. I didn’t swear.” After suffering a seizure while traveling to Marquette, Lou Anne said she used marijuana for medicinal purposes and it helped her recover.
A horticultural therapy course helped Lou Anne reinvent the wheel, she said. “I had gone through a divorce. I felt isolated. That played into my psyche,” she said. She helped herself by helping others through workshops on soap-making, tie-dying and gardening workshops, such as growing carrots and seedlings.
She has created events and workshops to keep the organization in the forefront of veterans’ minds throughout the year. A flags-and-flowers basket sale offering 10-inch baskets for $30 is a fundraiser, as is the Let’s Grow Together Gardens, supported by sponsors. “The gardening projects give the veterans something to do,” Lou Anne said. The Hamilton Foundation provides a small annual grant.
A caregiver retreat will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on July 12. The same evening, from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m., the Safe Haven at the Raven offers free, low-impact fireworks in the form of a lightshow above the ponds set to music.
The Almost-Electric Solar Forest event Oct. 11 at dark features a walk in the woods with lit-up trails, vendors, traveling violinists and a disc jockey in the woods.
Christmas in the Greenhouse and a veterans gala in Menominee round out the year.
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