#growlove
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Additional Funds Will Support Larger Trees, Lusher Garden
We are excited to reach our $35,000 goal! With just two days left in our campaign, we would like to raise an additional $3,150 so that we can purchase larger trees to plant in the healing garden. Incorporating the wheelchair ramp and replacing our retaining walls means that we will have to cut down some of the existing trees. We will replace the trees in the new garden and would love to be able to purchase larger trees -- river birches, Japanese maples, star magnolias -- to create a more lush and inviting garden right from the start. More funding will support taller and fuller new trees!
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Help Us Build an Accessible Healing Garden for Homeless Men and Women with HIV & Cancer
For 25 years at Joseph's House, we have welcomed and cared for homeless men and women with AIDS and cancer in Washington, DC. So much about our warm, inviting home and community creates an environment that nurtures the spiritual and emotional healing of those who have suffered for much of their lives.
Now we are working to extend that healing spirit into our garden. Right now our garden misses the mark: it's inaccessible, hard to navigate, has lingering rain puddles, and lacks areas for solitude, conversation, and small gatherings. With your support we can transform the garden into a fully accessible refuge that awakens the senses and creates an environment for introspection, prayer, and quiet conversation for those facing some of life's deepest challenges and questions.
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Our Dreams for the Healing Garden
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Accessible: Based on universal design
principles, our healing garden will welcome everyone in our community. Its
fully accessible entrance, pathways and materials will convey hospitality to
those who use wheelchairs or walkers.
Inviting: Our healing garden will be a
bright and glorious sign of welcome for all who enter, inviting resting in,
lingering; conversation. It will be a calm and beautiful place for solitude or
for visiting with family and friends.
Contemplative: The plantings and other
natural features will awaken the senses of sight, smell and touch, creating an
environment for introspection and prayer for those facing some of life’s
biggest questions and challenges.
Neighborly: A low perimeter wall with
a bench along the sidewalk, small lending library, and a built-in fresh water
bowl for neighborhood dogs will invite neighbors and passers-by to pause for a
moment to talk or to rest.
Gathering: Our healing garden will be
a place to come together for music and memorials and other celebrations to heal
and renew the spirit.
Remembering: The garden will have
dedicated areas to honor the hundreds of men and women who have lived, loved,
and died among us. In our healing garden, we will also give thanks for those
who live with us today and humbly anticipate the men and women who will join us
in the years to come.
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Learning About Love for 25 Years
Opened in 1990 in response to the lack of safe, stable housing for poor men with AIDS in Washington, DC, Joseph’s House today offers a welcoming community and comprehensive nursing and support services to homeless men and women with late-stage and end-stage AIDS and terminal cancer.
Our clinical staff and trained caregivers work to create a home where the values of unreserved love and friendship are practiced. With tenderness and exquisite care we accompany men and women who, without Joseph’s House, would likely die a lonely, isolated death. Together, we nurture the living and accompany the dying, providing a depth of physical, emotional and spiritual support that creates the possibility for profound healing and the restoration of individual dignity.
Help us Build the Terrace of Remembrance
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The garden's cornerstone will be the Terrace of Remembrance. Located where we have long held an annual memorial service for residents, the beautifully designed Terrace of Remembrance will recall the spirits of the hundreds of men and women who have lived, loved and died among us these past twenty five years and also be a special place for a few, or for many, to gather for conversation, music, memorial services, and other events to heal and renew the spirit.
The terrace will feature natural stone paving, a specially designed remembrance wall, and a rough stone altar – elements that will make the Terrace of Remembrance a place of meaning and comfort.
We need your financial gift to begin preparing the site, to bring in new, rich soil and for the trees and plants that will thrive in that soil! Your financial gift will provide beautiful hand-made benches that will invite folks to come into this space and stay a while. Your support will also help to fill the space with the names of those we remember and those who support our mission of justice and compassion.
A Dream Coming to Life
Our long-held dream for a healing garden took a huge step forward in spring 2014 when we won MakeDC's citywide design competition Designing Dreams. Working with MakeDC, we have refined our vision for the garden. Creating a fully accessible garden is a bigger challenge than we anticipated. It requires replacing a large retaining wall so we can integrate a wheelchair-friendly ramp, which will become the garden's primary entrance. Completing the garden will require generous support from individuals, as well as from corporate and foundation donors that support our mission of compassion and justice.
