Planting hope - Clinical Center prepares atrium gardens for spring

Episode # 79
Uploaded: November 30, 2011
Running Time: 02:10

CROWN: From the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, this is CLINICAL CENTER RADIO.

On a late fall afternoon dozens of volunteers patiently planted thousands of spring bulbs in the atrium courtyards of the NIH Clinical Center, a 240-bed hospital entirely dedicated to clinical research. The goodhearted gardeners included CC staff, patients, and students from the Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart and the Thomas W. Pyle Middle School in Bethesda, Md.

Debbie Byram, chief of CC Office of Space and Facility Management said:

BYRAM: I can’t wait for the spring. I’m a gardener at heart. To have our patients feel like there are some areas on some of their days that just don’t feel right [that they can] come out and see some beautiful gardens that might hopefully make their day a little better… is really an honor to do.

CROWN: The vision was created by Elaine Gallin, wife of Clinical Center Director Dr. John Gallin, and designed by Lynn Mueller, NIH Office of Facilities Research landscape architect. And all of the bulbs were donations to the Clinical Center, thanks to the support of the Foundation for NIH. Plus, finding folks, such as staff member Courtney Bell, who were willing to get a little dirty wasn’t too difficult either.

BELL: I have benefited the last several years of getting to eat lunch out here. It’s nice to actually be able to plant them and know that when they come up in the spring that I got to help out.

CROWN: Soon, the ground will be covered will snow. But then, said Byram, a sea of flowers will emerge in spring – and with them will come a feeling of newness and optimism.

BYRAM: That’s the whole mission of this hospital is to provide hope. And to me, having beautiful flowers is one way to help do that…So that’s what I’m looking at. I’m planting hope.

CROWN: From America's Clinical Research Hospital, this has been CLINICAL CENTER RADIO. In Bethesda, Maryland, I'm Ellen Crown, at the National Institutes of Health, an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services.

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