The Campaign for a NEW Ronald McDonald House
for families for our partners
for healing for our future
Let's make room
for families
Sometimes the best health care available is hundreds or even thousands of miles from home. Ronald McDonald House Charities of St. Louis provides lodging to families who have traveled to the St. Louis area seeking medical treatment for their seriously ill children. We make it possible for families to access the quality health care their child needs while focusing on what is most important: facing illness together, as a family.
740 More than
Meet Jase Jamie Worthen’s son Jase was born nearly three months early. For a year, she called the Ronald McDonald House on Park Avenue “home,” while Jase fought for his life in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. Rather than being two hours away in her hometown of Murphysboro, Illinois, she was just down the street and able to participate daily in his care.
families receive lowor no-cost housing each year
Let's make room
for healing
39
families are on the waitlist each night
When life-saving medical care is far from home, affordable accommodations help improve access to treatment, keep families together, support health and well-being, and alleviate some of the financial and emotional stress of a serious illness. The new house will be one of nearly 400 Ronald McDonald Houses worldwide that help families stay close to their sick children when they need to heal. Studies show that families strongly believe that staying at a Ronald McDonald House: • improved their children’s recovery • shortened their child’s hospital stay • helped the family stay together Children whose families stay at a Ronald McDonald House tend to be the sickest, have traveled the furthest distance for care, and spend the longest time in the hospital.
Meet Jadon Jadon turned 18 while calling the West County Ronald McDonald House home. He traveled to St. Louis with his father from the small island of Grenada in the Caribbean for hip replacement surgery to fix a five-year-old injury that never healed correctly.
Let's make room
for our partners
Increasingly more families travel to St. Louis seeking life-saving care at our world-class pediatric hospitals. Our hospital partners in the region rely on us to house their patients’ families so they can focus on what they do best: providing exceptional medical care. Hospital administrative and clinical leaders say that their affiliation with RMHC enhances their ability to provide family-centered care and even improves the quality of that care. And families who stay at Ronald McDonald Houses are twice as likely to give the hospital a top rating for their patient experience and to recommend the hospital to others. Improving a family’s experience is good for the family AND good for the region. Our first house in St. Louis was built in 1981 and had only 8 bedrooms. While we can currently house 59 families a night, the need for our services continues to grow. It is heartbreaking to turn In an average year, away families, and yet our waiting list has we are forced to been as large as 39 families per night.
3,044 turn away families
times
Let's make room
100% for our future of funding stays in St. Louis
We have launched a $30 million campaign to raise the funds needed to build a new
72-bedroom Ronald McDonald House in St. Louis City. This will increase our overall capacity, serve hundreds of more families each year, and reduce the need to turn away families. Increased Capacity
Improved Efficiency
A new house will increase our overall capacity from 59 to 92 families per night.
New, energy-efficient facilities will replace aging buildings that require frequent, costly repairs, during which lodging is often unavailable to families in need. Bringing families and staff together at one city location instead of two will allow us to lower maintenance costs, consolidate administrative functions, and improve services.
Accessible Location The new house will be equidistant from St. Louis Children’s Hospital and SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital, and adjacent to Shriners Hospitals for Children – St. Louis.
Healthier Accommodations Community bathrooms at the West Pine House are problematic for families with immune-suppressed children and other communicable illnesses, and some rooms are small with only two twin beds. Each room at the new house will have space for two double beds and an ensuite bathroom.
Ensure Long-Term Sustainability We’ve been a part of the St. Louis health care scene for the past 40+ years. This project will ensure that we continue to meet the needs of our community and its families far into the future. We’re even designing the new house with the ability to add more rooms if needed.
Will you help us make room for more families?
Our vision for the NEW Ronald McDonald House
The NEW Ronald McDonald House at the corner
Louis H St. Children's Hospital
of Chouteau and Tower Grove Avenues
FORE
ST P ARK
AV E N U
E
H Shriner's Hospital
R TE N VE DE VA N
1 0 0
SSM Health Cardinal Glennon H Children's Hospital
S
K IN G S
H IG H W AY
The NEW Ronald McDonald House
GRAN
D
64
TOWER GROVE AVENUE
44
CHOUTEAU AVENUE
Locations West Pine
Today
Future
20 bedrooms
replaced
11 bedrooms
replaced
Long-Term Apartments
8 units
replaced
West County
20 bedrooms
20 bedrooms
built 1890, acquired 1981 and 1989
Park Avenue built 1893, acquired 1996
built 2003
built 2010
NEW Ronald McDonald House
Total Capacity per Night
72 bedrooms
59 Families
92 Families
Why this matters Rest. This is one of the ‘prescriptions’ we give parents while their child is in the hospital. Without it, they aren’t as effective advocating for and participating in their child’s care, which is so important to their health and healing. Ronald McDonald House makes it possible for families to be close by and well-rested." DR. ALEXIS ELWARD Pediatric Infectious Disease Physician and Chief Medical Officer at St. Louis Children’s Hospital
We are fortunate to have some of the best pediatric hospitals and specialists in the country in St. Louis. Thousands of children and families travel here from around the country each year to access life-saving care. Ronald McDonald House provides many of them with low- or no-cost lodging. Building a larger House in the city will help us meet this growing need and provide comfort and care to these families when they need it most." MIKE DECOLA & STEVE PELCH Campaign Committee Co-Chairs & Past Board Chairpersons, Ronald McDonald House Charities St. Louis
The Ronald McDonald House is an essential part in facilitating treatment for the children we help, who come from countries where the lifesaving or life changing treatment they need is simply not available to them. Without the Ronald McDonald House offering a place to stay, many of these children would die waiting for treatment; or suffer unnecessarily without access to care. When we call the House to make a reservation and are told there are no rooms available, this means delaying treatment for these children and wasting precious time they may not have." NATALIA ROSALES U.S. Referrals Program Director World Pediatric Project
Without Ronald McDonald House, there's no way my family and I could have afforded to be with my daughter during her stay in the hospital so far away from home. The hotels in the area were too expensive to be an option for our family." BEVERLY MITCHELL Parent
A new Ronald McDonald House at Tower Grove and Chouteau Avenues will help contribute to the revitalization of Forest Park Southeast and the City of St. Louis as a whole, in addition to providing an important resource for nearby pediatric hospitals and patients." BRIAN PHILLIPS Executive Director, Washington University Medical Center Redevelopment Corporation
View from the corner of Chouteau Avenue and Tower Grove Avenue
The mission of Ronald McDonald House Charities of St. Louis is to provide
comfort, care and a home-away-from-home for families of seriously ill children. Our objective is to enable families to practice family-centered care by providing them with all the basic comforts of home.
3450 Park Ave., St. Louis MO 63104 Phone: 314-773-1100 rmhcstl.com