A Day of Renewal for Baptist Health's Chaplains.
How River & Roots Ranch became the restorative offsite for the people who spend their days holding space for everyone else.
Baptist Health Spiritual Care — Northeast Florida's largest health system (~12,000 employees)
30 hospital chaplains, led by Rev. Carmen Emerson, M.Div., BCC
Full-day retreat · October 23, 2026
246 acres on the St. Marys River · 40 minutes from downtown Jacksonville
The people who care for everyone else.
Baptist Health is Northeast Florida's largest health system, with roughly 12,000 employees across the Jacksonville region. Its Spiritual Care team — the chaplains who sit with patients and families through the hardest moments of their lives — is led by Rev. Carmen Emerson, M.Div., BCC, Coordinator of Spiritual Support Services.
Chaplains give continuously. They carry grief, crisis, and end-of-life presence as a daily part of the job, and the research on caregiver burnout is unambiguous: the people who hold space for others need restoration of their own. Carmen wanted to give her 30-person team a genuine day of renewal — not another training session in a hospital conference room, but a real change of place, where the group could breathe, reconnect, and be cared for instead of doing the caring.
River & Roots Ranch designed a full-day corporate retreat built around a single promise: every detail handled, nothing pulling the team out of the moment. On Friday, October 23, 2026, the chaplains trade fluorescent hallways for live oaks, river breezes, and the unhurried rhythm of a working ranch just forty minutes from downtown Jacksonville.
The day at a glance.
A retreat agenda shaped around rest, not logistics.
What the booking included.
One clear number, everything handled.
Simple terms: 50% deposit reserved the date · balance due one week prior
What made the difference.
A setting that actually restores
A genuine change of place 40 minutes from downtown — not a hotel ballroom.
Everything handled
Catering, AV, setup, parking, and a shuttle in one all-inclusive rate.
Exclusive use
246 private acres and 1.2 miles of St. Marys River frontage — no other groups on the property.
Hospitality that gets it
A team that understood this wasn't an event to manage, but a day of rest to protect.
Planning something similar? See corporate retreat details and pricing.
Host your day of renewal.
If your organization has a team that gives all year — chaplains, nurses, caregivers, or a leadership group that needs to think somewhere real — we would be honored to host your day.