“At any given moment you have the power to say ‘this is not how the story is going to end”
Christine Mason Miller
Gardens Foundation
Gardens Foundation is a beacon of hope, providing a compassionate refuge for women and children who have escaped the shadows of domestic violence. With a focus on comprehensive support, the foundation offers a safe haven where survivors can heal emotionally and spiritually, blossom in personal development and cultivate a brighter future.
Our immediate services include:
Pop-up classes for moms and kids to have fun creating and learning from and for each other.
Partnerships with local businesses to provide unique experiences not available to many survivors without sponsorship.
Self-care workshops to begin and continue the healing process.
Our future vision involves retreat centers serving as comforting sanctuary’s, staffed with caring administrators and case managers:
Gardens Foundation creates peaceful spaces, a refuge coupled with creative healing programs fostering connection and community. Educational and exploratory centers with sensory integration therapy activities, crafts that nurture creativity and growth, while vegetable gardens, fruit trees and a prayer and gratitude wall create a sense of peace and renewal.
In parallel, Gardens Foundation extends its embrace to children from all walks of life through the transformative Gardens Camps. These unique camp experiences provide young hearts with endless fun, exploration and confidence building excitement, while simultaneously offering a spiritual awakening and a life of simplicity, in collaboration with other organizations that share similar missions.
Equine therapy, arts, music, and outdoor adventures await, fostering emotional healing and creating lifelong memories.
By intertwining these powerful initiatives, Gardens Foundation emerges as a symbol of resilience and change, illuminating the path towards brighter futures for those who have endured darkness and uncertainty.
Our Founder
Jamie Marquez
A Founder Who Understands & Has a Heart for the Mission
Gardens Foundation’s story begins in a small town in New Jersey where Jamie grew up. At just nine years old she launched her first business, to earn enough money to attend Camp Sequoia in Abingdon, Virginia. That summer changed everything. The confidence built, the friendships formed, the sports that turned into passions and the life lessons learned in that camp environment left an indelible mark on her, planting a seed of conviction that every child deserves that same transformative experience.
That early entrepreneurial spirit never left her. With unwavering determination and a strong work ethic, Jamie earned a BA in Public Relations and Communications with a minor in Psychology from Rutgers University. She went on to build a distinguished career in the Pharmaceutical and Packaging Industries, where she developed expertise in complex project execution, sales and bringing ambitious visions from concept to completion.
Alongside her professional success, Jamie’s faith was developing in relationship and her life was being shaped for a different kind of work. Her service within the church community at St. Andrews Presbyterian where she and her husband Scott are members coupled with her volunteer roles with various at-risk youth organizations, opened her eyes to the prevalent and painful reality of repeated generational cycles of trauma and abuse that mothers and children face. When a mother is forced to endure this unimaginable trauma, the loving and natural bond between mothers and children is shattered and unable to grow and flourish in a safe and secure environment.
As a mother and stepmom herself, she witnessed firsthand the weight of those struggles — and felt an undeniable call to respond.
That calling on her life became Gardens Foundation.
