Students in the third and fourth grades at Faith Christian School planted flowers at the Salem VA hospital this week as a service project in honor of the hospital’s 75th birthday.
Over three thousand red, white, and blue flowers were planted in an American Flag design on the lawn at the center. Following the planting, the students released balloons in celebration of the event.
Faith Christian is also considering building a healing garden for their upcoming “Project Faith” event in April 2010. The planned garden would provide needed exercise and stress relief for patients suffering from Dementia and Alzheimer’s, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and traumatic brain injury, as well as treating those receiving physical therapy and cardiac rehabilitation.
Once developed, the garden is proposed to be replicated at other Medical Centers throughout the country. Several challenges still have to be met before the project can take place, however, which include the finishing of architectural drawings, construction work, and the procurement of needed funds.
The school will try to make a decision by late November as to whether the time line would be appropriate and all challenges have been met in order to move forward with the project. If the Medical Center garden does not work out the school will need a back-up project. If you have a suitable suggestion you can e-mail potential projects to Jay Whitmore in the Development Department: [email protected].
A project should be able to accommodate 300 students and 150 adults and take around 6 hours to complete. The school would like to work with a non-profit organization that needs assistance in completing a project or clean-up work. Whitmore says that “No suggestion is silly, and we really appreciate the help in finding a suitable site.”
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