Honored with a $1.5 million lead gift from the Vince Lombardi Cancer Foundation in 2007 (formerly known as Vince Lombardi Charitable Funds), a beautiful healing garden now graces the terraces on the eighth floor of the Patient Tower at Aurora St. Luke's Medical Center. The garden provides a natural environment that promotes healing and recovery for patients, their families, visitors and caregivers.

The Vince Lombardi Charitable Funds Healing Garden measures 12,500 square feet, of which 4,000 square feet is part of the indoor meditation conservatory, making it one of the largest and most unique healing gardens of its kind in the United States. Pathways are wheelchair and hospital bed accessible, which allows all patients and their family members to enjoy the garden’s array of indoor and outdoor botanical varieties.

Aside from its size, a unique aspect of the healing garden it that it is environmentally friendly. From the design to its construction, special attention was paid to energy savings, water efficiency, carbon dioxide emission reduction and improved indoor environmental quality. During construction, 90 percent of the debris from the site was either recycled or redirected. The construction materials were processed and manufactured locally, which required less travel distance. The wood-based materials used for the garden came from environmentally responsible forests. The garden’s designed landscaping and irrigation systems reduce water consumption through drip irrigation and drought tolerant plants. The garden was also designed with a green roof system, which not only helps reduce existing runoff and prevents the soil in the planters from eroding, but also can help eliminate heat absorption. To date, the project has amassed enough points for basic Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification and upon completion, estimations have the project receiving gold LEED certification.

In additional to the lead gift from the Vince Lombardi Cancer Foundation, the Estate of Agnes and Morland Hamilton also helped make the healing garden vision a reality. The $4.9 million healing garden was constructed solely with private community-based donations.