Thursday’s groundbreaking for Donna Terrell’s Warrior Lodge at Jefferson Regional left the namesake filled with many emotions.
“This is quite amazing for us,” said Donna Terrell, the longtime KLRT Fox 16 News anchor. “I am overwhelmed. I am overjoyed. I am a little nervous. There’s a long road ahead. This is just the beginning.”
The long road to realizing a great need for patients at Jefferson Regional’s Jones-Dunklin Cancer Center won’t take much time to travel. The 3,300-square-foot Warrior Lodge is expected to open at 4003 S. Mulberry St. by next summer and will include four bedroom suites with private restrooms, a kitchen area, living space and laundry room for patients fighting all cancer types and their families, according to hospital CEO Brian Thomas.
Construction is estimated at $550,000.
“This is a really special project, not only the story about how it came about with Donna and her daughter’s story,” Thomas said. “But really, (considering) the opportunity to do something between her foundation organization and the Jefferson Regional Foundation, it will be the first of its kind for our group and our foundation to partner with another organization to do something as well for patients.”
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Terrell’s Yoga Warriors Fighting Colon Cancer is partnering with the Jefferson Regional Foundation to create and operate the Warrior Lounge. The Yoga Warriors group was founded after Terrell’s daughter Queah, who was diagnosed with colon cancer, learned about the benefits of yoga for cancer survivors at a hospital where she was treated, according to the organization’s website.
Queah, who died in 2011, also received help from a program that offered no-cost housing to cancer survivors and caregivers, according to the Warrior Lodge’s website.
The Warrior Lodge will be a no-cost facility for all cancer patients, Terrell said. Kathy Ross, director of oncology services for the Jones-Dunklin Cancer Center, estimated that without on-site housing, four patients from outside southeast Arkansas would have to drive 37,000 miles through 27 weeks of treatment.
“We’ll have the capacity to save many patients, not just one at a time,” Ross said.
The ones who are most likely to stay at the Warrior Lodge are those who need long-term treatment, Terrell said. Her organization also plans to provide gas cards to patients, as well as gift cards if the lodge is full.
“The bottom line is, we are going to help cancer patients, their families (and) their caregivers through one of the most difficult times of their lives, and to have at least some of the financial burden lifted is so meaningful,” she said. “If we can help them by one small measure by doing something by giving them a place to stay, then it means a lot.”
