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Shirley Spain Healing Garden dedicated at RWRH

The Shirley Spain Healing Garden was dedicated recently during an intimate ceremony at the Middle Peninsula Cancer Center on the campus of Riverside Walter Reed Hospital.

Following several years of fundraising and months of construction, the garden has become a more than 13,000-square-foot natural healing space for cancer patients and their families, a release said.

“My mother (Shirley Spain) died of cancer, so I know how stressful dealing with the disease can be both to patients and family members,” said Steve Spain, a longtime Riverside supporter.

Shirley Spain loved to garden, he said, and “got so much pleasure out of it even as she was fighting the cancer. The Healing Garden was an amazing idea and a wonderful way to honor my mother and make a difference to other cancer patients at the same time.”

Ruth Van Davelaar, Director of Radiation Therapy for Riverside Health System, said the garden gives cancer patients “a chance to get out of the clinical ...

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