Community Projects that are close to my heart
At Gardening by Tess (GBT), we believe that roots exist in our gardens and in our lives. These projects below are other ways that GBT has been involved in the community. We invite you to join in these efforts as well.
“Where flowers bloom, so does hope” -Lady Bird Johnson
Healing Garden at Children's Hospital
Cash Scanlon Phillips lived to be only 4 months old, but during his short life he did a lot of hiking.
His parents, Tess Scanlon-Phillips and Page Phillips, carried him on walks through Jefferson County’s Open Space trails and Indian Peaks Wilderness Area. Cash, who was born with Type 1 Spinal Muscular Atrophy, died the day after Mother’s Day in 2007, and those hikes stood out in his mother’s mind.
“I think Cash really loved them,” she said. “Those were times that we really connected as a family.”
Those mountain trails were the inspiration for the Healing Garden dedicated Sunday at the Children’s Hospital in Aurora. The Phillipses raised more than $88,000 to build the garden, and Scanlon-Phillips, a landscape architect, designed it.
“My hope is that if someone is sitting here in the middle of Aurora, they can be transported to Indian Peak or another place in the mountains,” she said. “I want to give them emotional space from what is happening inside the hospital.”
The Cash Scanlon Phillips Foundation started in 2007 when Foundation founders Page Phillips and Tess Scanlon-Phillips received the fatal diagnosis that their 3.5 month-old son, Cash, had Spinal Muscular Atrophy.
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