Hope Springs Eternal With Cancer Center’s New Wishing Well

Visitors at Valley Health’s Cancer Center have a chance to share encouragement with those on their cancer journey through its new Well of Good Wishes.

Tricia Strother, a Winchester Medical Center Foundation board member and co-chair of the Pink Ribbon planning committee, commissioned the well, along with her family, in memory of her brother Kenneth Mitchell, who died four years ago at the age of 41 from esophageal cancer. The mission of the Pink Ribbon planning committee is to celebrate and recognize cancer survivors and those currently fighting the disease.

Strother, with the support of the Pink Ribbon planning committee and Valley Health Foundations, came up with the idea of the well as a way for people to leave inspirational notes, prayers and quotes for those with cancer. Messages are placed in the bucket of the well, and all visitors are encouraged to leave one. The notes are regularly delivered to Wellspring, Valley Health’s cancer resource center, to be put in care bags for those with cancer.

“It’s an opportunity to spread a little joy forward and to share the mission of the committee,” Strother says. “A kind, loving, supportive note can mean everything.”

“Giving is more than just monetary donations,” adds Jenny Grooms, executive director of Valley Health Foundations. “Sometimes the gift of hopeful words can have an equally lasting impact. Compassionate thoughts shared in challenging times can inspire the courage a patient needs to get through their treatment, or even just the day.”

Strother said her brother Kenneth was a woodworker, and the bucket of the well is from the wood in his wood shop. Kenneth was also a social butterfly who befriended many other patients in the Cancer Center. He would often give away his gift cards to those in the center whom he considered were more in need of the money.

“Anyone he saw at the Cancer Center, he tried to be positive with,” Strother says. “He was the guy who would give you the shirt off his back. This well is an extension of his loving, positive spirit and how he lived his life. He was a great big brother.”

The well was officially launched at the Pink Ribbon celebration in April 2023.

Strother encourages businesses and organizations to show support to the Cancer Center and Wellspring by writing and leaving notes in the well.

“It really is touching a lot of people’s hearts.”

To find out more and explore ways to support patients on their cancer journey, visit www.valleyhealthlink.com/giving.