Kind hearts shudder to think of children who are abused and neglected. Children whose childhood is scarred. Children who are scared.
We picture a place where they can frolic in nature, listen to the ripple of falling water, or skip joyfully down a path.
Some of the kind hearts in our community have banded together to bring such a healing oasis to those children, children starved of love, care, security and beauty.
On Jan. 9, dozens turned out for the groundbreaking of the Gulf Coast Kid’s House Healing Garden, a 1,500-square-foot outdoor therapeutic space to help provide recovery for children who have experienced abuse. The Healing Garden, located on land next to Gulf Coast Kid’s House, will feature sensory plants and pathways, a calming water feature, musical wall, a maze, various sensory stations, artwork, a mulch trail, benches, a swing, jasmine covered fence and pavilion for year-round use. There will also be security cameras.
Gulf Coast Kid’s House, located on 12th Avenue, helps about 4,000 abused children each year in Escambia County. According to the nonprofit child advocacy center, one in nine Escambia County children suffer abuse, most often at the hands of someone the child knows and trusts.
The Healing Garden is the class project for the 2026 Leadership Pensacola class, which received a $103,500 grant from IMPACT 100 Pensacola Bay Area to fund the project, which will cost just under $200,000, according to Gulf Coast Kid’s House Executive Director Stacey Kostevicki. The 2026 Leadership Pensacola class is fundraising to help pay for the remaining costs.
“Gulf Coast Kid’s House does phenomenal things for our community and this is just such a cool idea,” said Lauren Gund, who was one of the project’s team leaders for Leadership Pensacola. She is also a board member of IMPACT 100 Pensacola Bay Area. “The impact that it’s going to make will be amazing and, honestly, a Healing Garden is going to help children process their trauma.”
She said the Leadership Pensacola class, a program of the Greater Pensacola Chamber of Commerce, will do more than just fundraise for the project.
“We’re going to do everything from helping select the features and the materials and working with the contractor (Green Procedures, Inc),” Gund said, “to literally coming out here and putting our hands in the dirt and planting plants and building structures.”
Gulf Coast Kid’s House clinical director Jaime Aughtman said the garden will provide many benefits to children.
“There are going to be lots of spaces for relaxation, sitting, we’ll be able to hold therapy sessions here” she said. “Right now, I’d say 95 percent of our therapy sessions are indoors, and when you can be outside and in nature—there are going to be water feature, music stations—kids will be able to come and just have movement to just be able to express themselves. The peace that provides, especially for all the trauma victims that we see, it’s going to be such a great space and we’re super excited to have it.”
Pensacola District 5 City Council member Teniade Broughton, whose district includes Gulf Coast Kid’s House, spoke of the haven the garden will provide and her own memory of the neighborhood.
“I remember when this was the old A&P (grocery store),” she said to the crowd who attending the groundbreaking ceremony. “I would like to thank you for bringing this to our community. It reminds me in a way—and I’m going to sound corny for this—but we have the spirit of family in District 5. By creating this you are reminding us that even in situations where young people don’t have family, there is a family and a community to love and support them.”
The project is expected to be completed “soon,” Kostevicki said, adding that soon means in the first or second quarter of the year.
For more information on Gulf Coast Kid’s House, including ways to report abuse and how to help the organization, go to www.gulfcoastkidshouse.org.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Kid’s House Healing Garden will be oasis for abused children
Reporting by Troy Moon, Pensacola News Journal / Pensacola News Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
