Hospital Inspires Parkland Students Volunteers
Kelley HEANEY
Staff Writer
Earlier this month the Horticulture Program held their 3rd Annual Banquet, during which there was a presentation of the alternative spring break in Memphis, TN. Spring break was when forty volunteers, mostly from Parkland College, constructed a garden in front of one of the world's largest children's hospitals. The trip was a response to one man's dream.
The dream of Parkland College landscape and design student, Jeremiah Godby, was to build a garden in front of the St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. This garden was his way of thanking the hospital for saving his life when, as a child, he had a rare form of leukemia. He wanted to build a place of solace and refuge for patients and their families.
Many of the children patients here have lost their hair to chemotherapy. They wear medical masks to help their weakened immune systems fight off other diseases. While one would think the hospital is a place of broken dreams, volunteer and Parkland student, Tracy Woodcock, said "the hospital breathes a breath of hope and of turning hope into reality." Fun murals in the hallways create an atmosphere conducive to healing. "It's one of the happiest places I've ever seen," she continued.
Creating the child shaped garden, took the volunteers 1400 hours that week. There is a labyrinth in its head because that is where the hope is. "It symbolizes the journey of the child, not the destination, because not all arrive at the desired destination," said Parkland's award winning Landscape Design and Horticulture Program Director, Kaizad Irani, who designed the project with Godby. Included in the garden, scattered throughout the plants, are memorial pavers for the children who lost their battles.
The child's body is a heart containing a tree with the exposed roots pointing at the nearby hospital. The tree is experiencing all four seasons, the idea of which was taken from a mural in a hallway of the hospital, tying the two together. The arms and legs walkway can be more easily seen when viewed from above, like from the patient rooms on that side of the building.
While the garden didn't cost an arm or leg, it wasn't free, either. Parkland's Activities Program Manager and Prospectus Advisor, John Eby, was enlisted to help with fundraising. He was able to raise $16,000 of the needed $125,000 with various fundraisers in Parkland. Change jars at Gulliver's and Mama Leone's, enabled Parkland students to nickel and dime their way to the completion of Godby's dream. Other donations helped complete the financial aspects.
The donations were spent on shrubs and flowers, mountains of mulch, and about 600 paving stones to form the walkway. The patients painted stones with brightly colored hearts, rainbows and flowers as did other volunteers. One even had a baseball. Inspiring messages were also included such as "Heroes come in all sizes," and "love makes us stronger."
Parkland students, Lainey McNichol and Karissa Francis agree that a key memory of the event is of watching the children and their families paint the stones and then locate them in the garden. "I had a sense of giving back that I have never experienced before," said McNichol.
Lois Sjoken, another Parkland landscape and design student said, "It gave me a feeling of total satisfaction when we were done. It was hard to choke back the emotion. Everyone has to walk past it on their way to and from the parking area."
Several volunteers related memories of one student and a patient. Parkland's Service Learning Coordinator, Lauren Ritter, explained, "Sam and Jacob were inseparable for a while." Sam showed eight year old Jacob how to perform several construction tasks, including how to pound the bricks into the walkway. Jacob's mother stood nearby snapping photos, and smiling.
The last of the plants went into the ground near the heart of the garden. Godby's mother and grandmother arrived and the three planted the final daylily in the garden as volunteers hugged each other, many in tears at the moving moment.
"I've done thousands of designs," Irani said of the experience, "but this will be one of the most special I've ever done."
The garden was officially opened on Friday, March 25, with a ribbon cutting ceremony. Using large, bright red scissors, and fighting tears, Godby cut the ribbon, his dream coming true.
Named the Possibility Place during planning, St. Jude staff and patients have now renamed it the Hope Garden since that is what the hospital and the garden actually seem to inspire in both patients and volunteers.
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