When the O’Charley’s in Grove City agreed to be the venue for our Breakfast with Santa fundraiser this year, it was the first time the venue would be providing our Santa. What’s more, it turns out that one of the servers who asked to play an integral role in the event was with the first family to stay at our original Ronald McDonald House on 18th Street when it opened 40 years ago this year. We took a moment during his busy lunch shift to ask Chris about what he remembered from the first of what would be many stays at the House when his 2-year-old sister was diagnosed with cancer. As is often the case with stories we hear, his sister beat cancer and is a healthy woman today.

Our seventh year of Breakfast With Santa takes place with two sessions on Saturday, December 3. The first is at 8 a.m. and includes the Grinch and Cindy Lou Who joining Santa. The second session at 9:15 a.m. will have Santa and includes a raffle drawing at the end with several gift baskets for multiple winners. Click here for more information and to get tickets for the whole family. All proceeds go to Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central Ohio to keep families close.

Editor’s Note: This guest post is from the Huntington Ronald McDonald House Facebook page last week.

266 days. Almost the entire first year of Carter’s life spent in the hospital, with mama and dada back and forth between our Huntington RMHC and Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central Ohio so they could be by his side every second. They finally made their journey home yesterday! Carter was born weighing under a pound, just 15 ounces. He has had a long journey, but he’s a fighter, and so are his parents! His mama wrote:

“In February, we hurried into the operating room to bring you into this world. We didn’t even get a glimpse of you before you were rushed into a separate room to be revived and intubated. You were just 26 weeks gestation and given less than 50% chance of survival. It was 10 hours later before I was able to see you for the first time. You were so incredibly tiny, not even weighing a pound.
A month before ever holding you.
On a ventilator for 5 months.
Being life flighted to another state.
Emergency eye injections and eye surgery.
Celebrating holidays & birthdays in the hospital.
So many ultrasounds, x-rays, and echos.
Every step of breathing support.
Feeding tube after feeding tube.
Countless blood transfusions.
And so many scares you gave us.
BUT we’ve made it! After 266 incredibly hard days, we are finally bringing our baby boy home from the NICU for the first time!”

Vickie Goodman knew the immense value of the Ronald McDonald House near the Jackson, Mississippi hospital where she worked as a NICU nurse for decades. She never thought she would end up adopting one of her patients with special issues one day and needing to stay at a Ronald McDonald House herself on a regular basis. Click the image above to learn how Vickie decided she still had more love to give after raising five kids, and how Ronald McDonald House has been here for her and her daughter when they’ve needed to to travel to Columbus for care.

We love hearing from families that have felt at home at our House. When we share these kudos, we want you to know that we share the gratefulness with our circle of supporters including donors & volunteers. The photos of the patient’s sister say it all.

“Thank you, @rmhcofcentraloh for creating such a fun, welcoming environment during a hard time for our family. While Sadie’s baby brother is in the NICU at @nationwidekids she has been able to enjoy the RMH with mom and dad. Thank you to anyone who donates to this organization. They have been a huge blessing to our family.” – Nancy Sponseller on Instagram

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Nancy Sponseller (@nanannsponseller)

By Rick Shepherd, Communications Manager, RMHC of Central Ohio

Some may not be aware that we are required by Nationwide Children’s Hospital to have staff members, not volunteers, welcome families and family members to our Ronald McDonald Family Room in the Big Lots Behavioral Health Pavilion. That’s why many of us who wear different hats professionally with our chapter, can often be found greeting folks to our room in the BHP.

I just wanted to share a short chat I had with the grandma of a patient being cared for here in the BHP, where I’m working today. When checking her in to our family room, she said she was from nearby Pickerington, Ohio and she’s been here to the room several times over that past several weeks, but the patient is being released and she would be headed home today…except that now, a hurricane is probably destroying her house as we speak. She further explained, with tears in her eyes, she’s the patient’s grandma from Florida and she’s actually been staying with the patient’s parent’s home in Pickerington to support them and her grandchild during this tough mental health crisis for the family. However, she actually lives in Punta Gorda, Florida where Hurricane Ian – a category 4 storm at the moment and one of the worst in a hundred years to hit the area – is currently baring down. She tells me she may not have a house to go home to now and feels fortunate to be staying with family up here a little longer, until the storm passes and she can return to assess the damage. There have been more than a few families here today in the sitting area watching The Weather Channel coverage of the storm with great concern for those they know there.

It’s a good reminder of the additional stressors, unrelated to their medical journey here, that can be playing a part in the lives of the families we’re caring for when they’re in our House or one of our family rooms. We here at RMHC of Central Ohio are also thinking of our volunteers and “extended work family” here who may be in Florida, have homes there, or who themselves have family members there as well as all of the RMHC chapters in Florida – especially along the west coast – who are facing quite a stress-test right now themselves. Here’s hoping everyone who lives in Florida is staying safe and has the best possible outcome.

Samantha and her son Ivan have been guests at the Ronald McDonald House when Ivan was being treated at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. See how the House has impacted their family by clicking the image above.

Lennon Norgard was born in Tacoma, Washington at 28 weeks weighing 2 lbs and 2 ozs with many issues including a chronic lung disease that affects newborns. Doctors at the hospital told his family that it would be best if Lennon were seen by experts at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. So the parents and and grandparents found themselves with the newborn on the way to Columbus, then staying at the Ronald McDonald House. Click the image above to hear grandparents Kristin & Dane Norgard talk about the comfort they found just across the street from the hospital.

When you watch or listen to the video, you’ll learn that Kristin is a teacher back in her hometown, where the school rallied to collect pop tabs to support the House where Lennon’s family stays in Ohio. Click the image below to see the video made by students for the pop tab drive.

It will have been twenty years ago this September, that the Ronald McDonald House became the Rupp family’s home away from home when their daughter, Morgan, was born weighing only 1 pound, 9 ounces. Today, Morgan’s mom Melissa happens to work for an Extension Office of The Ohio State University College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences. So when Melissa learned of the OSU CFAES Dean’s Charity Steer Show, she couldn’t wait for her family to get involved. Click the image to hear Melissa talk about this exciting fundraising event coming to the Ohio State Fair on Tuesday benefiting Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central Ohio.

The Ronald McDonald House in Columbus, Ohio is growing for a million reasons. Click the image below to watch the video that aired on NBC4 this week featuring two of our board members, Bruce Burkholder and Tammy Roberts Myers, speaking with Shawn Ireland on the Live Happy, Live Well program. To learn more about our campaign, visit www.RMHC-CentralOhio.org/amillionreasons .

By Rev. Judy Noble, Pastor, St. Lukes Presbyterian Church, Titusville, FL

Our daughter, Ashlee, and her husband, Jacob, lived in Florida and were visiting Ohio the last weekend of May 2021 for a bachelorette/bachelor weekend at Hocking Hills to celebrate our youngest daughter’s upcoming wedding that August. Ashlee was 31 weeks into her pregnancy and developed severe preeclampsia. She was triaged in Hocking Valley Community Hospital, then transported by ambulance to the Nationwide Children’s Hospital unit at OhioHealth Riverside Methodist Hospital where the medical team helped her deliver their first child, Gabriel. Our family went into support mode for Ashlee, Jacob and Gabriel as they were more than 1,000 miles from home and without anything except what they had packed for their vacation week.

Ashlee, Jacob, and two of our family members who served as their NICU additional support team used the Ronald McDonald Family Room at Riverside Hospital as a place to rest, eat, and refocus during the seven weeks that Gabriel was in the NICU. Ashlee and Jacob also were blessed with the opportunity to live at The Ronald McDonald House in Columbus, which gave them a beautiful and supportive place to live while Jacob and Ashlee were learning to parent a son in the NICU and who both were unable to work because they were so far from home.

As Ashlee’s mom, I was the visitor who was able to be their support person from The Ronald McDonald House. During this time of Covid-19, just one visitor per family was allowed in the Ronald McDonald Family Room, so I was also able to visit them at the hospital and retreat to the family room where I was close by when they needed me. I saw firsthand how the staff and physical space of both the Ronald McDonald House and the Ronald McDonald Family Room at Riverside Hospital impacted the ability of Ashlee and Jacob to navigate the deep challenges they faced during those first seven weeks of Gabriel’s life. As a pastor who has journeyed with people in many different hospitals, I can say that the Columbus Ronald McDonald House and the Ronald McDonald House Family Room at Riverside Hospital are two of the biggest gifts I have ever seen for families who are in some of the most emotionally and physically overwhelming days of their lives.
Gabriel will celebrate his first birthday at the end of this month and we are forever grateful for the gift you gave our family of support, space, and help during his first weeks of life. Thank you for your wisdom, vision, teamwork, commitment, and love for our family and thousands of others!