May 1, 2020
MultiCare’s Hope Grows Here project blooms in windows and elsewhere
Looking for inspiration during the COVID-19 pandemic? Watch your neighbors’ windows.
MultiCare Health System’s new Hope Grows Here community project is encouraging community members to create window gardens from the safety of their homes.
The project launched after MultiCare issued a social media call for a COVID-19 volunteer team. Within a few days, more than 700 people had signed up.
Maria Estrada, a MultiCare volunteer services coordinator, has been on the receiving end of messages pouring in from residents asking how they can help.
“All these volunteer emails have been medicine to my soul,” Estrada says. “I have literally sat behind my computer screen and cried. I have felt through their keystrokes their sorrow, happiness and willingness to help.”
Hope Grows Here’s featured project invites community members to decorate their windows with encouraging words and flower art, creating a community-wide mural of support to those who walk and drive by. Local artists have been commissioned to create window displays and murals in key locations throughout the South Sound.
Hope Grows Here, supported by MultiCare and the MultiCare Foundations, also provides a range of other at-home activities to encourage people to stay connected and stay hopeful during Gov. Jay Inslee’s “Stay home, stay healthy” order.
The project’s website centralizes resources and activities to promote mental health among individuals and families during a time that’s emotionally and mentally challenging for many. It invites residents to use a community message board to write messages of gratitude for essential workers.
“Knowing that the community is thinking of us lessens the burden we are carrying,” says Patty Pineda, a registered respiratory therapist at MultiCare Tacoma General Hospital.
The project is raising funds through the Hope Grows Here Fund to help increase mental health care and substance use disorder services throughout the MultiCare Behavioral Health Network, the largest comprehensive network of behavioral health care in Washington.
The site also provides updates about donations the health system may need, such as food, blood donations and manufactured personal protective equipment, or PPE. And it consolidates charitable giving information for those who want to donate to a COVID-19 response fund.
Hope Grows Here plans to extend its efforts in the community. The project is partnering with local organizations, libraries, schools and businesses to inspire and create more artistic installations.