After her beloved dog Hanna passed away, Mary Rieck, a board member of the Grandview Foundation, decided to devote more time to her passion—gardening.

She began working at Grandma’s Gardens, a gardening and landscaping center, and spending more time cultivating her gardens at home.

Nurturing her gardens quickly became a healing experience for Mary. “I needed a distraction from my grief,” Mary says. “Gardening provided me that and helped me heal.”

Mary wanted others to experience the same healing effect. “I feel an attachment to Kettering Health Dayton. I wanted to share with my hospital and its patients the calming, happy feeling flowers can bring,” she says. Mary not only donated the money for a garden but also worked with Grandma’s Gardens to redesign the medical center’s outdoor café garden, as well as some of the flower beds around campus.

While healing is usually considered a physical process, restoration can also be spiritual. Because of Mary’s generosity, patients, visitors, and staff at Kettering Health Dayton look out on a new landscape—an oasis for healing.