The Nashville Ronald McDonald House is celebrating 20 years of helping families whose children are ill. (photo by Steve Green)
Ronald McDonald House celebrates 20 years of caring
A stone’s throw away from the Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt, sits a red brick building nestled within a mostly residential neighborhood with a place for families to lay their heads.
It’s a place where home-cooked meals replenish weary parents worried about sick children. A place to find a shoulder to cry on. A place to heal. A place to call home, temporarily.
The 32-bedroom building, an inn of sorts, is the Nashville Ronald McDonald House. The organization is celebrating its 20th year since it opened its doors as a place for families to have some stability and resources while their children are cared for at Children’s Hospital.
“They are an important partner in caring for a family,” said Janet Cross, director of Patient and Family-Centered Care and member of the House’s Board of Directors. “The Ronald McDonald House staff is unique and nurturing. They know their work and do their work well. They are able to provide a sense of family.”
Since the house opened in 1991, initially as a 16-bedroom building, more than 11,300 families from all over the United States and several foreign countries have benefited from the services. There are seven full-time staff and more than 200 volunteers – the backbone of the organization. John Lukens, M.D., former head of the Pediatric Oncology Department, was the visionary behind bringing a Ronald McDonald House to Nashville.
In 2004, when the freestanding Children’s Hospital opened, the house also opened a family room within the hospital to offer snacks, drinks and respite.
Volunteers, like this group from the People’s Church in Spring Hill, are crucial in taking care of the families that stay at the Ronald McDonald House. From left are Sarah and Chris Nielsen, Jennifer Yancey, Jennifer Stinson and Kim Larocca. (photo by Steve Green)
The Ronald McDonald House roots go back to 1973 in Philadelphia, Pa., where a former pro-football player, whose child has leukemia, saw the need for families with sick children to have a temporary home.
“A home away from home,” is the house’s motto. And it’s just that, only on a larger scale. The Nashville house has two kitchens, eight dishwashers, 10 washers and 10 dryers, a living room, a library, two dining rooms, two playrooms and several common areas.
“Our mission is to keep the family together,” said Elizabeth Piercy, executive director of the house. “By keeping families together, they are able to better care for the child. When you’re sick you want your mom or dad. It provides families with a place to rest after a long day or night at the hospital and gives families a chance to revitalize.”
Dot Dunn and her family found a surrogate family and home to help them through the most difficult of days after her son Andy was diagnosed in 2008 with neuroblastoma, a cancer that develops in the nerve tissue. After treatments and surgery, the Dunn family had stayed at the house for 114 days.
Andy, now 8, and his family have never forgotten the house or the staff.
Each time they travel from McMinnville to Nashville, they visit. Andy’s neuroblastoma is currently undetectable in his body.
“It’s like a second family,” said Dunn. “It’s a really good place to be when things are not so good.
The staff would let Andy color and blow up balloons. We could go and get a cup of tea and just sit. They knew that we needed a break.”
The house operates at full-capacity at all times, with a waiting list of families who are referred by a hospital social worker.
If families are able, they can pay a $15 per night donation, but no family is turned away based on ability to pay.
The average family stay is 28 days. Funding from community donors and special events helps the house run.