Butterfly and Flame - Alina and Evan

Ash

Nothing about Ash made much of an impact to the first time visitor. Frankly it wasn't much more than a town. Most people coming to Ash we're coming to attend a wedding, a funeral or they had turned off on the wrong exit. Nobody came to Ash for a holiday and yet the town got a little bigger every year. Population 24,595 and growing. Not much by city standards but that was exactly why it was a "hidden gem". Unlike many of the picturesque towns that ran up and down the California Coast, Ash was at the base of the Sierra Mountains. Gateway to Yosemite National Park and the famous El Capitan. It was neither picturesque nor quaint in the traditional sense. It was simply Ash. It did have one thing that separated it from all the other little towns and suburbs of the bigger cities and that was its heart. It had heart and that was directly linked to the people that called it home. Ash was the only town between Sacramento and Los Angeles that had a Children's Hospital that ranked in the top 5 in the nation. It's doctors and nurses, medical and research staff, and administrators were important without a doubt but they were not the main attraction. What was important about the hospital was it's children. The children that were brought here came in as little birds, some broken and battered by their illnesses and some blissfully unaware of the fight they were in for. The town of Ash was built around the hospital over its 99 year history. It was the only hospital that catered to children for miles and the only hospital that turned no one away anywhere in the state. Ash; although not named after the little girl who became the hospitals first patient, she was the reason that the town had become what it was today. Ashley A. Salvatierra.

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