Linda Hachez has done her part to beautify Sudbury while helping to nurture the less fortunate.
She has contributed considerable time and effort to establish numerous community gardens. By teaching people how to grow their own food and cook it, she has nourished them.
"Linda has supported a wide variety of environmental and horticultural initiatives throughout Greater Sudbury," said Wayne Hugli, the past-president of the Sudbury Horticultural Society.
"I have been particularly impressed with her work as co-ordinator of the Coniston Community Garden and the Sudbury Community Garden Network's Cultivate Your Neighbourhood projects, which connect students with the many benefits of gardening."
"I want to make the world a better place," she told Sudbury.com recently.
That goal seems to be getting harder and harder every day. A back injury has slowed her down but she is still gardening.
The Minnow Lake woman is a Master Gardener, a designation that requires completing a series of courses, taking upgrading classes and doing volunteer work.
Hachez, 77, calls herself "a doer" and refers to herself as a "typewriter warrior."
She writes reports and grant applications for various gardening projects. She helps others negotiate red tape at various government levels and she speaks her mind when she sees social injustice.
Hachez also volunteers and helps any way she can with the Go-Give Project, a non-profit charitable organization that helps homeless people and those who are experiencing substance use disorders.
"A friend and I gave a gardening workshop, then a freezer jam-making workshop for their clients. It was so appreciated by the clients."
She has "adopted" the families at a nearby housing complex, where she shows them how to garden.
To help them out, she makes a weekly trip to Froogles Discount Store in Hanmer when free food is distributed by Froogles and Helping Hands Family Mission to families in need.
This very busy and determined lady has raised three successful children.
Her interest in gardening started when she was a child growing up in Coniston.
"We came from Nova Scotia, which was lush and green. My mother used to tell the story that when she got to Sudbury at the train station at the junction, she looked around, sat down and balled her eyes out, and tried to get back on the train to go home. Everything was so black and barren.
"I was six years old and I remember getting 10 cents for something. There was a general store in Coniston and I bought a package of pansy seeds for six cents. I planted them where the old outhouse used to be and they grew like crazy and I was hooked."
She retired in 2012 from Canadian Revenue Agency (CRA) offices in Sudbury. She is proud of a Governor-General's medal and certificate from Prime Minister Stephen Harper that were presented to her in 1992 after she discovered a CRA systems glitch.
Her pet project is the Coniston Community Garden. Plots are available free to seniors and school children. Produce from the children's gardens was donated to the Coniston Food Bank prior to the pandemic.
Produce from seniors' gardens is utilized by the gardeners and shared with their neighbours in the senior complexes.
From 2018 to 2023, the gardens ran Seniors Helping Seniors, which saw them provide a Good Food Box to each of the three seniors complexes in Coniston.
"At the end of the summer, for eight years now, the Coniston Community Garden has hosted a seniors' harvest lunch. It is vegetarian and we serve about 100 seniors to showcase the best of our garden produce, and encourage people to consider growing their own food," Hachez said. "People really look forward to it."
She has contributed to numerous school gardens, rain gardens at Adamsdale Public School, and Laurentian University, the Minnow Lake Dog Park garden and the Minnow Lake Place Community garden as well as mentoring several other community gardens through their start-up process.
"I enjoy helping people. It's not like work," she said.
In 2017, Our Children, Our Future presented Hachez with the Excellence in Action certificate for her work on youth and community gardening projects. That same year, she received a Civic Award from the City of Greater Sudbury.
Ward 12 Coun. Joscelyne Landry-Altmann first met Hachez through the Louis Street Association in 2012.
"Linda was in charge of community gardening,” the city councillor said. “She is a natural nurturer and teacher. She generously donates her time, her expertise, her many resources, whether talent for gardening or cooking with the same level of dedication and always without expecting anything in return."
Landry-Altmann said she is fortunate to call Hachez her friend.
"Friends come in different hues. She is brilliant in all. She is a fierce defender of her friends or situations that she feels are unfair. She is a true warrior against injustice in whatever form it takes.
"She has a very wry sense of humour steeped in common sense and frankness. She has an unwavering energy and dedication to helping others. I am unequivocally certain that everyone who knows her or has had the pleasure to work with her will agree."
Vicki Gilhula is a freelance writer. Helpers is made possible by our Community Leaders Program.
