Luminary Donation

We had our neighborhood luminary event earlier in the month.   I collected checks and cash donations and today I took the total to the local Ronald McDonald house.  My best friend and I choose this charity because my daughter’s pediatric ophthalmologist said it’s a location they’ve had many patients stay at in the past.   I didn’t want to do something completely vision related, so this worked for me.  

I parked and was talking to the person at the front desk about our donation when I realized a friend was sitting in front of the large, roaring fire in the entry hall.   Bill was the business manager at my children’s school for the first three years we went there.   He retired and not unlike many retired people, still wanted to do something.   He started out volunteering a few hours here and there and now works part-time.

He offered to take me on a tour.   Since I had no idea about anything they did I accepted.    He showed me the quad kitchen which was four full kitchens around a huge island and a row of refrigerators.   Cabinets surrounded the room with labels such as, ‘soup’, ‘macaroni & cheese’, ‘peanut butter & jelly’ were labeled among other things.  

But food is also brought in for lunch and dinner if you want to eat in the dining room, he told me.   There were people bustling around, some making cupcakes, some having conversations in the dining room.   It felt welcoming and comfortable—not like a hotel at all.  

There was a large conference room filled with toys and things for children from newborn to eighteen. They receive about $900,000 of their three-million dollar operating budget from gifts in kind.   Families got to pick whatever they wanted from the toy room for their child and possibly siblings that might be staying there for a week or up to a year even.   The gifts in kind aren’t just toys.   They have 15,000 paper towel rolls and another 15,000 containers of wipes donated every year.   

We went down the hall so he could show me one of the rooms and he told me about the ceiling tiles.   Every family that stays is given a tile and asked to decorate it however they want and then it’s hung down the halls.

The rooms themselves had their own kitchen, washer and dryer included and came with a welcome bag that included all the basic toiletries you might possibly need.   This is a common need, Bill told me, as sometime families arrive and have nothing with them because their child was life flighted from  a city far away or even out of state.   They had a family who came in last week who had no clothes other than what they were wearing.  

I hope we would never need the services offered by the Ronald McDonald house, but it’s very nice to know it’s there for people who need it.  

The Big Boy Update:  My son was spending time with his older friend, Gavin, last week.   There was a lot of giggling as he would ask us what “sex” meant and then when the adults completely failed to get what he was talking about by explaining all about gender, he would try again and ask us if we knew what, “cock” meant?   We were all apparently dense on that word as well, exasperating him but not stopping his giggles. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  When my daughter was washing her hands at my sink she looked forward into the mirror and said, “I never saw a sink over there before” pointing to the sink’s reflection in the mirror.   Sometimes I’m struck by what she can’t see.   I guess I’m glad she’s seeing it now.