On December 5 and 6, Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central Ohio experienced a heartwarming transformation. Multiple local painting groups and a dedicated painter from Canada joined forces to repaint 25 rooms at the House, creating a calm and refreshing environment for our families.
Tiffany Freer, the owner of Swatch Pro Painters, made the long journey from Ontario, driven by a personal connection to RMHC.
Landon’s Condition
At 25-years-old, Freer faced a difficult pregnancy with her third child, Landon. While Freer was pregnant, doctors discovered that Landon was missing his diaphragm and had many malformed internal organs due to a condition called Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia. They determined that he would have to be in the NICU immediately after birth.
Freer and her husband carefully planned a time to induce her, but all plans were thrown out the window when the hospital’s NICU flooded while Freer was actively in labor.
“He needed the life support machine to survive the birth, so they told me to stop the labor altogether,” Freer remembered. “It was already a scary situation.…It was really hard.”
When Freer had to pause her labor, she was introduced to Ronald McDonald House of South Central Ontario for the first time. Little did she know this place would be her home for the next ten months. She spent that first night at the House so she would be ready to start labor again the next morning.
“I walked in, and the amount of warmth that was immediately there—to have a hot cup of coffee after a super traumatic experience—it meant a lot.”
The next day, the birth went smoothly, but Landon couldn’t breathe when he was born. Doctors brought him to the NICU and were able to stabilize him within 48 hours. But for the next year, he would be staying in the NICU recovering from multiple health issues such as brain bleeds, bowel obstructions, heart attacks, strokes, lung collapses and sepsis.
Staying at RMHC of South Central Ontario
It was an incredibly difficult time for Freer and her family, but they found solace at the Ronald McDonald House. “RMHC enveloped our family. They were like a family,” she shared. “It’s hard to put into words the full impact.”
Freer says her two daughters were “spoiled rotten” by RMHC, and that celebrating holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving at the House brought back a sense of normalcy.
The doctors were able to construct Landon a diaphragm made of Gore-Tex. That year, Landon was one of 167 babies in Canada with his condition to live to his first birthday.
Now, Landon is a functional, normal eight-year-old boy who enjoys helping his mother paint. As he grows, he has to have his diaphragm replaced, but with each surgery, they visit the Ronald McDonald House.
One time, Landon had to be emergency rushed to the hospital the night before his sister’s birthday. Freer had planned a princess-themed birthday party for her daughter, but, unfortunately, the party had to be cancelled.
“To tell a five-year-old that you’re not going to have a birthday…I was just devastated for her. She was so upset.”
But when Freer and her daughters got back from the hospital that night, their entire room was decorated like a princess room thanks to the front desk staff, complete with a castle, tiaras, dress up box and toys.
“It was incredible,” said Freer. “RMHC gave us a place in the chaos of our lives where there was a little bit of stability.”
Giving Back to the RMHC Network
When Freer first learned about “Paint it Forward,”—a day of service for painters at RMHC of Central Ohio—from her friend and colleague Michal Cheney, owner of No Drip Painting in Columbus, she knew she had to be there. Despite a seven-hour drive through snowstorms, Freer was determined.
“Someone asked if I was actually going to come down for this,” she said. “And I was like ‘Yeah. I can’t explain to you the impact RMHC had, but if I can come back and give back, I’m absolutely coming.’”
On December 5, Freer joined forces with nearly 40 other painters from 11 different companies to help repaint older family guest rooms at RMHC of Central Ohio. To read more about this event and its impact, read our blog post here.
“This is a really cool opportunity to be able to give back to an organization that gave [my family] so much,” she said.
Thank you, Tiffany, for participating in Paint it Forward and for sharing your story. Thanks to the work of you and dozens of painters who donated their labor, these newly refreshed guest rooms will provide respite for thousands of families served by RMHC of Central Ohio for years to come.