A permanent field of handcrafted flowers is taking root in Athens County, built to honor children and families whose lives have been changed by childhood cancer. Ohio University announced the Field of Forever Flowers on Oct. 28, a project led by the university’s Barbara Geralds Institute for Storytelling and Social Impact with community partners Hideaway on the Hocking, Turn It Gold and Passion Works Studio, according to Ohio University News.
The field’s first bloom was made for five-year-old Gibson Weaver of Albany, known to family and friends as Gibs. Weaver attends kindergarten at the Ohio School for the Blind, loves playground swings and Llama Llama books, and is living with an inoperable optic pathway tumor. On Oct. 17, he joined his family and members of the Ohio University soccer team at Hideaway on the Hocking to help shape that first flower, Ohio University News reported.
The flowers themselves are designed to outlast every season. Each gold bloom is crafted with Passion Works Studio, a nonprofit collaborative that makes space for people of all abilities, from reclaimed aluminum newspaper printing plates, then painted together by families, students, artists and neighbors. Once planted, the metal flowers stand permanently, offering a reminder that does not fade when summer ends.
The project grows out of a decade-long partnership among the storytelling institute, Turn It Gold and Passion Works to widen the story of cancer survivorship to include children and the effects that can follow them long after treatment ends. “Beauty can emerge amid hardship, and we can help one another handle hard better when we do so in community,” Dr. Lynn Harter, professor and co-director of the Barbara Geralds Institute, told Ohio University News.
For the owners of Hideaway on the Hocking, the work is personal. Co-owner Brent Hayes is himself a childhood cancer survivor, and his wife, Cindy Hayes, told Ohio University News the couple could not be more honored to support families facing similar diagnoses. The field is taking shape on the Hideaway’s 400-acre sanctuary along the Hocking River in southeast Ohio, surrounded by trails and trees and designed as a place to wander, pause and reflect.
Student-athletes are part of that community of support. Ohio soccer player Rylee Mensel, a junior nursing student who hopes to work in pediatric oncology, helped make the first flower. “Being a student-athlete has taught me the importance of showing up for others,” Mensel told Ohio University News, adding that the experience reinforced the kind of nurse she hopes to become.
When complete, the field will celebrate children living with and beyond cancer, honor survivors and remember children who have died, with benches, a story station with journals and coloring pages, and QR codes linking visitors to stories shared by participating families, Ohio University News reported. More flowers will be added in the months ahead as families and community members gather to make them, and a formal dedication of the Field of Forever Flowers is planned for Aug. 6, 2027.