Osher Center, Cancer Center partnership receives $2 million gift for new community learning kitchen

The Cincinnati Business Courier highlighted a $2 million gift from John and Carrie Hayden  to establish and endow a community learning kitchen that emphasizes the vital role of nutrition not only in the prevention but also the treatment of chronic disease.

The future John and Carrie Hayden Community Learning Kitchen will be a collaboration between the University of Cincinnati Cancer Center and the Osher Center for Integrative Health at the University of Cincinnati. The learning kitchen will open in early 2026 in the Blood Cancer Healing Center, adjacent to a mind-body-spirit wellness studio and rooftop healing garden. 

“We respect the value and importance of conventional medicine,” said the Haydens. “That said, we believe there is immense power in the combination of conventional medicine with the evidence-based complementary therapies of integrative medicine.”

The John and Carrie Hayden Community Learning Kitchen will emphasize the benefits of nutrition and healing, combining the science of cooking and culinary medicine and serving as a hands-on laboratory for clinical research studies and implementation science.

“What the Haydens have done for the Osher Center, cancer care and this community is unparalleled,” said Sian Cotton, PhD, director, Osher Center for Integrative Health at UC and Turner Farm Foundation Chair. “Carrie is a spectacular human being. She’s a very smart businessperson who is all heart. And John, also incredible, has given so much of his time, talent and treasure by leading the center through its strategic planning process — they are simply extraordinary, and we are so grateful to both of them and their family.”  

Read the Cincinnati Business Courier article.

Read more about the gift and learning kitchen.

Featured image at top: Rendering of the John and Carrie Hayden Community Learning Kitchen. Photo/Provided.