By AIESHA SOLOMON
Courtesy of Senita Hill
A new respite home that will give women diagnosed with cancer a place to relax and reflect is opening in Laurel and it is free of charge.
Peace on Patuxent Inc., nonprofit respite home for women with cancer, will be opening this month in a single-family home on Patuxent Road.
“Our mission statement is to provide a supportive environment that promotes holistic healing, spiritual reflection and self restoration for women diagnosed with cancer,” said Horatia Fagan, vice chair of the Peace on Patuxent Inc., or POPi, board of directors, in a phone interview.
Senita M. Hill, founder and chief executive officer of POPi, described it as “a labor of love” she started after the death of her mother and her best friend from lung cancer, and her own diagnosis of MGUS ( monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance), a precursor to cancer.
Courtesy of Senita Hill
When the organizations Hill participated in to respect the memory of her mother and her best friend weren’t enough, she thought and prayed for an answer.
“[Hill] called me one morning and said … ‘I got the vision: Peace on Patuxent, and we’re gonna operate it right out of this house’,” Fagan said.
To stay at POPi, women will simply need to fill out a form and complete an interview.
“We’re not a medical facility,” Fagan said of the single-family home that houses Peace on Patuxent, “so they would have to be vibrant and able to take care of [themselves].”
There are no ethnic, income or educational requirements, according to the POPi website.
“Peace on Patuxent is not just exclusive for brown and black women. It’s open for Asian women. It’s open for Hispanic women. It’s open for Caucasian women. It’s open for everyone,” said Miriam Rendon-Ponce, marketing director and a POPi board member. “We’re open to a young woman, 18 years old, or to an older lady.”
Eligible women will be able to stay at POPi for two days and two nights, from Friday to Sunday, with breakfast and lunch provided. Dinner will not be provided for overnight guests, but “they’re able to go out into the community and dine,” Hill said, or they can meet with their family if they live locally. Day retreats will be offered on Saturday and include the meditation garden; lunch is also provided.
Meals will cater to the guests’ nutritional needs, with plans to offer garden-to-table food, according to Hill.
Rotating activities that will be available to guests include yoga, meditative writing, expressive writing, meditation and possibly poetry and music, Hill said.
“When we interview the women, we will ask them what they’re looking for, what they like and sort of pattern the activities according to the women,” Fagan said.
There will be two women for the two day and two night overnight stay and four women are allowed for the day retreat in the meditation garden.
“It becomes a community [of] six women where they’re able to exchange, communicate [and] have communion with each other,” Hill said.
Courtesy of Senita Hill
Car service for overnight guests is in the works, which will drop guests off at POPi’s Patuxent Road property on Friday and return them home on Sunday, Hill said.
“We want her to feel like this is really about her. She is the queen. We want to treat her. Whether it’s your mom, sister, daughter, niece, or co-worker, to me, she’s precious, and we should treat her as such,” Hill said. “Bring her and allow her to just decompress at the property.”
Only one overnight stay will be allowed every five years, though guests are still welcome to the garden, Hill said.
In the first year, Hill said Peace on Patuxent will only open one weekend a month.
“After the first year, we would like to open every weekend and expand from two women overnight, to four women,” Hill said. “We have room for expansion, so the work is just beginning. We’ve just done the groundwork.”
Creating Peace on Patuxent Inc. has cost more than $40,000 from its beginning to the present, Hill said, in an email.It has been mostly self-funded by Hill, and has received donations, too.
“We’re trying to get the funding, so that she won’t have to come out of her pocket as much because yes, it’s her vision, but now it’s the community,” Fagan said.
“Anyone with cancer should have a nurturing space, where they can feel in power, where they can feel like they find a community, where they’re able to hope and where they can just have, like, a space to put their feet up and be able [to] think because sometimes when they are diagnosed, or when [they’re] going through the journey, it’s so difficult,” Rendon-Ponce said. “I think Peace on Patuxent gives them a moment to just be them, to put their feet up, enjoy the garden and enjoy themselves with other women that are also going through the same thing.”
Peace on Patuxent Inc., 228 Patuxent Road, will have a ribbon-cutting ceremony and reception on Aug. 22 from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. For more information, call 301.383.5266.
