Ronald McDonald Family Room Anniversary

CELEBRATING 15 YEARS

The Ronald McDonald Room at Mercy Children's Hospital celebrates 15 years of providing comfort and care.

This year, the Ronald McDonald Family Room at Mercy Children’s Hospital celebrated its 15th Anniversary! Since 2005, this special room has provided thousands of families with comfort and care just steps away from their child’s hospital room.

In 2019 alone, the Family Room at Mercy served 2,102 families. Offering a place for parents, guardians and grandparents to grab a quick snack or cup of coffee, take a hot shower, lounge in comfortable couch and do laundry.

We could not offer this special space without the group of 120 dedicated volunteers who allow us to keep the room open to families seven days a week.

“Every one of them [volunteers] genuinely enjoyed what they were doing and it showed in how they treated everyone. It was almost like they were welcoming you into their home,” says a mom who used the Family Room in 2019.

In April 2020, with the guidance from RMHC Global leaders, we closed our four in-hospital Ronald McDonald Family Rooms for the safety and well-being of those we serve. Over the past months, we have had the opportunity to work with all three of our hospital partners to allow families to access Family Room accommodations on an individual and limited basis. RMHC St. Louis continues to follow the guidance and recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the World Health Organization (WHO), local State Departments and local hospital partners.

“Our partners at Mercy treat the Family Room as an integral part of family care within the hospital,” says Courtney Fischer, RMHC Family Room Program Manager. “They have been an exceptional partner to us over the past 15 years.”

Each winter, the staff at Mercy Children’s Hospital host a wish list drive to collect essential items to keep the Family Room running. The multiple carload donation fills our shelves and keeps hygiene products and snacks accessible until the spring.

We look forward to opening the doors of all four St. Louis-area Ronald McDonald Family Rooms to meet families when they need it most. Until then, we look back on the 15 years of servicing local and out-of-town families inside Mercy Children's Hospital and could not be more grateful to our volunteers, partners and donors who continue to support our program. ■