PeaceHealth hosted a ceremonial unveiling of a 10-foot tall, 350-pound statue of a dove – PeaceHealth’s organizational symbol
Visitors to PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center will find a new statue watching over patients and caregivers as they enter the hospital’s Firstenburg Tower.
On Monday (Oct. 18) PeaceHealth Southwest hosted a ceremonial unveiling of a 10-foot tall, 350-pound statue of a dove – PeaceHealth’s organizational symbol.
In remarks prior to the unveiling, PeaceHealth chaplain Susan Lanford told the crowd “The dove represents many things, including hope, peace, acceptance and grace. But most of all, love. Because of that, when the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace needed to choose a symbol to represent our ministry, they chose the dove.”
PeaceHealth Southwest Foundation Board Director Emeritus Connie Kearney provided the spark of inspiration for the statue, along with the planning, funding, and energy needed to bring the statue to PeaceHealth Southwest.
“The statue was designed and built by a company in Wisconsin and brought by flatbed truck westward via I-90,” said Connie Kearney. “With all that’s gone on the last two years with COVID and the stress and the pressure – doing this in honor of our caregivers really made us feel good about it, to bring something happy and cheerful into our community. We’re happy to be a part of it.”
PeaceHealth Southwest Chief Executive Sean Gregory singled out both Connie and Lee Kearney to thank them for the donation.
“This is just one chapter of a very long book that is their legacy of helping us to advance our healing mission,’’ Gregory said. “It is a hard time to work in healthcare, but it is moments like today that make that hard time awesome to be a part of. I feel very grateful to be a part of what we’re doing here.”
The Kearney’s have a long history of philanthropic support of important programs in the community, including the PeaceHealth Southwest Kearney Breast Center.
To watch or download a video presentation of the unveiling visit: https://peacehealth.widen.net/s/qzkmvxkwxv/dovestatue
Poor timing! There’s so many things about this article that are supportive of my “poor timing” comment that I’ll not even list them. Suffice to say… anytime the word “awesome” appears in a public statement you can be sure it is catering to a certain crowd and agenda.
The word awesome only appears in this story in a quote and is attributed to the person making a statement. I agree with you that if it appeared in the story outside of a direct quote that would be an editorial comment and doesn’t belong in a news story. Thanks for pointing it out though. It’s something I try to watch for as I process news from organizations and sources. … Editor Ken Vance