Ruth VanBogelen selected as 5 Healthy Towns Foundation’s Champion of Wellness Lifetime Achievement Award winner
From the Fall/Winter 2020-21 edition of Connected Magazine
This spring, 5 Healthy Towns Foundation asked for nominations of individuals from all five towns from which one Champion of Wellness Lifetime Achievement Award winner would be selected. Ruth VanBogelen from Manchester was nominated along with Dawn Cuddie from Grass Lake, Joe DeBoe from Grass Lake, Annie Lavergne from Grass Lake, Dr. Gary Manard from Grass Lake, Jo Mayer from Stockbridge, Brett Pedersen from Dexter, and Jim Stormont from Grass Lake.
Manchester’s Ruth VanBogelen was selected as the winner!
5 Healthy Towns stated, “This award recognizes one spectacular individual who has demonstrated a lifetime of achievement through engagement in a wellness lifestyle based on leadership, volunteering, and supporting personal and community wellness throughout one’s career or one’s lifetime.”
This article originally appeared in print in the Fall/Winter 2020-21 edition of Connected Magazine and is being republished here with permission.
From the Fall/Winter 2020-21 edition of Connected Magazine
Ruth VanBogelen, Champion for Wellness Lifetime Achievement Award Winner
Written by 5 Healthy Towns Foundation
Ruth and her young family’s 1984 move to Manchester was “meant to be.” After graduating from the University of Michigan, she started her career and her family, and, with two toddlers in tow, her husband Mark was assigned a new position at the local bank in Manchester with the stipulation that they live in the local community. The house they built together in those early years is still the one they call home today.
Her passion for wellness started at a young age on her family’s cattle farm in Cadillac; she learned to can and freeze the fresh produce they grew there, too. Those experiences taught Ruth the importance of learning where food comes from and how to be more self-sustaining: a theme that she has carried with her all her life. At Pfizer, as the lead of the proteomics technology group, she traveled all over the world to work with colleagues and better understand how prevention could play a bigger role in the products that Pfizer developed to treat chronic conditions and diagnose diseases earlier. Her role fit perfectly with her passion for health promotion and wellness.
When Pfizer relocated its corporate headquarters to Connecticut, Ruth began to evaluate what to do next. After some consulting projects, she joined the 5HF Board, the Committee for Strategic Impact, and started a part-time position as our first coalition coordinator. When she retired in May 2015, she returned to the 5HF Board to complete her term and was then better able to travel with her family.
For Ruth, who and when is a driving force. If she’s not planting seedlings, volunteering at the local farm markets, coordinating Math and Science Night at Manchester Community Schools, or analyzing data to promote wellness, she is recruiting others to help. Additionally, according to Ruth, “there is no better time than now to join the wellness movement and live a healthy lifestyle”.
Her current wellness priorities in Manchester include TOPS, which received 5 Healthy Towns Foundation funding for 3 years but now runs on its own with about 50 members; the Community Garden, School Garden, and seed library; ACORN Farmers’ Market & Café; and working with wellness coalition members on the data review team to plan for future community programs. All of these interventions have left a positive mark on Manchester’s (and 5HF’s) vision to Eat Better, and each represent points of pride for Ruth.
Ruth tells us her role as a mother to three great sons who have wonderful families is her greatest contribution to our community. As a scientist, she accomplished more than she dreamed of; she directed experimental research projects, published many papers, and was known for speaking engagements worldwide. It was a fulfilling career.
Ruth likes being known as someone in the community who is all about being healthy. She values her community and is proud to give back to it through gardening and the farmers’ market. Years ago, when her young grandson Cade told her that “strawberries came from the grocery store,” she was inspired to increase awareness of local gardening for young children. She turned that inspiration into an intergenerational pre-k and elementary school program that is still thriving. Ruth has two large gardens (one at home and one at the community garden) of her own and helps maintain a large plot to donate food to senior citizens.
Congratulations to Ruth VanBogelen, our 2020 Lifetime Achievement Award recipient!
Ruth, her husband Mark, their three sons, and their families. Eric, Danielle, Cade, and Kali, as well as Craig, Liz, Luther, and Calvin live in Manchester; Nick, Richelle, and Brody live locally. From the Fall/Winter 2020-21 edition of Connected Magazine
Ruth with pre-K students. From the Fall/Winter 2020-21 edition of Connected Magazine
Ruth (right) at Acorn Farmers’ Market. From the Fall/Winter 2020-21 edition of Connected Magazine
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