Pub. 57 2016-2017 Issue 4

17 SUMMER 2017 Howdy Honda opens redesigned recovery roomat Dell Children’s Blood & Cancer Center By Drew Carr, Statesman Content Marketing O n Thursday, April 6, 2017, Howdy Honda unveiled its newly redesigned Howdy Honda room at Dell Children’s Blood&Cancer Center.The room is one of Dell Children’s Blood&Cancer Center’s recovery rooms, which are designed as post-chemo treatment recovery spaces for their brave young patients. The remodeled room opened with ribbon cutting at 10 a.m. Thursday morning, and two patients at the center, Ayleen and Alexis, did the ribbon- cutting honors.The finished product was truly a sight to see. “It’s beautiful,” said Cliff Collier, General Manager at Howdy Honda. “[It] turned out really nice.” The new Howdy Honda room features vibrant outer space imagery wall-to-wall— astronauts, flying Pilots, Odysseys and Fits, supernovas and swirling galaxies among the stars. The roomalso features curtains filled with stars, pillows with intergalactic patterns, a wall-mounted reading light and a spaceship bookshelf with space-related books and acces- sories. Though the ribbon cutting took place on Thursday, the room had already helped a patient earlier in the week. The following is an article that ran in a recent issue of the Austin American Statesman which they have graciously allowed TADA to re-print for Dealers’ Choice Magazine: “There was a very special patient coming into this room, a teen who was really not doing well,” said Mary Frasher, Art & Development Coordinator at Dell Chil- dren’s Blood & Cancer Center. Frasher explained the patient had a sensitivity to light, and his parents kept flashlights to let him know where they were in the room. “I looked in this room, and they’re sitting on either side of the bed with him, and you could see the three of them and they were smiling,” said Frasher. “And I thought, ‘that’s what this is about’.” Frasher said the center is very grateful for Howdy Honda’s new addi- tions to the room. “Thank you Cliff and Howdy Honda,” said Frasher. “For having the empathy and the wherewithal to come up with a design that’s out of the box and transports these kids to another place. That’s what this is about.” Collier was thankful also, for the staff at Dell Children’s and their dedication to patients there.