The outside walls of our Nursery feature an Angel Mural. This mural was painted by a local high school student, Gaynor Luce. Inspired by her newly discovered love of art, Ms. Luce created a mural along the 675-square-foot outer walls section of the Springhill Medical Center Nursery in only three days!

Although her timeline was to finish the mural over the summer, Ms. Luce worked 12-hour days to complete the project within only a few days of making her first brush stroke. “I don’t know what got into me,” she explains in her calm, soft-spoken manner. “I was inspired and just wanted to finish.”

The latex and acrylic mural features pastel cherubs accented with green, gold, and silver designs, such as clouds, stars, moons and other heavenly formations. Stars on the mural are inscribed with the names and birth dates of many babies born at Springhill Memorial Hospital.

Ms. Luce’s design for the mural was selected as the winner of a special category in the 2003 Color By Kids Art Competition, sponsored by both the hospital and its Auxiliary. Ms. Celia Wallace, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer for Southern Medical Health Systems, Inc., the health care company that operates Springhill Medical Center, chose the winning mural entry.

Students in the grades 9-12 category submitted designs for a three-wall mural to be painted on the outside of the hospital nursery. Before submitting their entries, student artists entering this category were provided with the dimensions of the walls and invited to the hospital to see the actual location for the mural. All of the art supplies, brushes, etc. needed to paint the mural were purchased by the Auxiliary.

The names on the mural represent more than 20 years of babies at Springhill Medical Center. However, it was not possible to include the names of more than 30,000 babies! So, when the mural was first painted, employees who had given birth here were invited to put their children's names into a drawing. The ones chosen had their names written on the mural.

Since then, one name is drawn from the deliveries each month to be placed on the mural.

Before your discharge, you will be given an information sheet which you can return to the hospital to have your baby's name placed in the drawing.