This year, Second Wind Retreat guests will enjoy fresh veggies grown right in the Retreat's own back yard, thanks to the efforts of The Home Depot of Blue Ridge and Team Depot volunteers. They arrived bright and early on April 10th to install six large custom-made cedar boxes, soil and river pebble walkways. All materials were donated by the Blue Ridge Home Depot, including natural cedar for the boxes, tons of garden soil to fill them and plants, as well as landscaping fabric, hardware, landscaping timbers and river pebbles for the walkways around the between the boxes. The time and expertise to construct the garden was donated by Team Depot members, who volunteered to design the garden, build the cedar boxes, level the ground and even install a piped watering system with cut-off valves at each box. Ten Team Depot volunteers as well as ten additional volunteers from the community worked to complete all the digging, leveling, lining, lifting, filling, and spreading of walkway rock. Dairy Queen of Blue Ridge and Papa's Pizza donated lunch and snacks for the hard-working volunteers, and by mid-afternoon, the empty Retreat back yard was transformed into an expertly designed and installed organic garden ready for planting. Our sincere thanks go to Home Depot and all our volunteers, for a beautiful raised bed vegetable garden that our guests will enjoy throughout the growing season!

Second Wind recently hosted its first "Healing Weekend" for cancer patients. The weekend was organized and facilitated by Kathy Poodiak of Northwest Georgia Oncology Centers. In addition to relaxing, participants enjoyed Kathy's program themed "Finding Shelter In The Storm." Amazingly, as soon as Kathy ended her program, a big thunderstorm came rolling through the valley! Thanks to Kathy, Pam and Diane - and to Nancy Goodson for her wonderful signature vanilla pound cake!

Members of the Blue Ridge Chapter of the Master Gardeners recently visited Second Wind to provide planting, pine straw spreading and general landscape clean-up. They planted a pink and a white dogwood (in honor of Marti Nunn's Mom and Dad) - and added more stonework to provide a new walkway so guests can get a closer look at the butterfly garden this year. We appreciate all their hard work to make Second Wind more inviting and beautiful!

Sheryl Muller just spent 6 nights at Second Wind along with her friend Sherry Braddy and their daughters. Sheryl, who has Stage 4 breast cancer, said she had a wonderful and relaxing time here. Thank you, Sheryl, for donating the three beautiful necklaces you designed and made!

If you've visited Second Wind Retreat, we invite you to tell people about your retreat experience. Please leave your comments below...