Ronald McDonald House Charities of North Central Florida

The Ronald McDonald House Charities first began in 1974 when a Philadelphia Eagle’s football player’s daughter was diagnosed with Leukemia. He saw the need for short-term housing of families near children’s hospitals. The Ronald McDonald house in Gainesville houses 31 families, allowing it to serve over 1,000 families annually. The mission of the program is to directly improve the health and well being of children by providing a ‘home-away-from-home’ for out of town families for little or no cost. The program addresses a plethora of childhood illnesses, as families are able to stay in the home as long as their child is being treated at the pediatric hospital. The house provides the family with a place to stay, people to draw support from, home-cooked meals, and accommodations such as a playroom, an office, and two kitchens.

I served as a House Helper, so my primary role was to keep the house welcoming, clean and tidy. I came around dinnertime, so I organized all of the food into the ‘help yourself’ refrigerator and clean the two kitchens, as with 31 families the kitchens need a lot of attention. This position allows you to be in direct contact with the families and to be available if anyone needs to talk. In training, they tell you to always stop what you’re doing and talk to a family member if they want to talk, which allowed me to get to know a lot of the families. Most of the children are receiving inpatient care, meaning that they stay in the hospital, but some are outpatients who stay at the house with their parents and siblings and go to the hospital for treatment. One inpatient I met was John, who has stayed at the house since June with his father due to lymphoma and a brain tumor. He is now in physical therapy, which allows him to stay at the house. He said that his experience has made him want to become a nurse and he appreciates it when I clean, as I am very thorough and his compromised immune system means he cannot get sick. While some faces each week were different, many of the same families were there for weeks, as families can stay for as long as their child is being treated by the children’s hospital.

Working with the recipients of the program was a lot of fun. It was rewarding to get to know them and hear their stories. I especially enjoyed getting to see a family checkout and finally get to go home after having stayed there for months with their daughter. Although the families are there for unfortunate circumstances, they were all in good spirits and glad to see me and talk to me. I enjoyed interacting with the families and making a difference in their life.