From the House that Love Built...

Today, I was sitting at lunch with a very dear friend of mine.  We were talking about 2012 so far...the highs...the lows...and the in-between.  From their perspective, 2012 is going to be a great year with only good things in sight.  From mine, 2012 is a year of unpredictability. 

So far this year, we have been very full running at 93% occupancy .  We have seen some families with children facing life-threatening challenges.  Recently, we have had one family whose newborn baby girl will forever need assistance breathing and with basic function.  We have another family whose 18 year old son was involved in a car accident and may never show brain activity beyond that of a 4 year old.

As I was talking about these stories with my friend, I explained to them that it is hard to be optimistic about 2012 when we have had such challenging cases to start the year.  However, they reminded me that even in the toughest of circumstances, I should remember that everything has a purpose and reason.  The House was built to serve families like these...the tough cases.

Therefore, I wanted to take a moment to wish everyone a great 2012.  Even on the days when we wonder whether this year will be better or worse than 2011, we must remember that we are truly blessed to not only have healthy families ourselves but also to be a part of something so much greater by helping families who need us most.  How can you not believe 2012 is going to be amazing after realizing that?

Best wishes for a great 2012!

Megan Priester
Guest and Volunteer Services Manger

After working at the Ronald McDonald House of Western Michigan for the past three years, I have learned that the Holidays at this facility are a special time.  We take great pride in decorating 4 trees (one live one!), stringing many feet of garland, and setting up the village generously donated by the Robinette family.  The House takes on a special glow and charm during this season.

A few days ago, one of our children attending a program at Mary Free Bed walked into the House and proceeded to point out to his mom every Holiday decoration.  "Look Mom!  Lights! A Tree!  Santa!"  The volunteers who had spent their time putting the decorations up took great pride knowing how much the decorations meant to the children at the House.

Even with all the decorations in the House, what gets me in the spirit of the season is the generosity of the community around us.  Grand Rapids has a heart the size of Texas when it comes to caring for those that are hurting and in need of help.  Each year, we have several organizations volunteer their time and talent to make the season that much better for our families.  Individuals help us stock our pantry shelves and provide toys for our children.  The amount of donations we receive and caring individuals I meet during this time of year is amazing.

Therefore, I would like to take this time to say thank you to all of the donors and community supporters that help our families during their time of greatest need.  Your donation of time, in-kind donations, and funding allows us to provide for over 450 families annually. 

From our House family to yours, Merry Christmas Everyone!

Megan Priester
Guest and Volunteer Services Manager

We're excited about meeting our Road Warriors tonight! What's a Road Warrior? Well, as a Charity Partner for the Fifth Third River Bank Run, we are assigned Road Warriors who help lead our team through the challenge of the run. These people all have wonderful, personal stories about how they incorporate fitness and running into their lives.

So tonight the Ronald McDonald House is hosting a meeting of all the charity partners and their assigned Road Warriors. I can't wait to meet with our warriors and find out how their ideas on how they can support our team. I'm sure all the people selected to the Road Warrior program are terrific, but I think the Ronald McDoald House really got lucky. Our Road Warriors are Zack Weber and Dale Robertson. Zack is a student at GVSU and the training coordinator for the university's running club. Hopefull Zack can convenience some GVSU students to join "Team Ronald". Dale is the CEO and President at the Grand Rapids Public Museum, so he has a deep understanding of charity organizations and their need for support. Dale and Zack will be great leaders for our team!

I'll be writing often about our River Bank Run team and how you can get involved. Now's a good time to start training for May 12, 2012. After all, it's less than six months away!

Our wonderful friends at Grand Rapids Montessori School were the focus of last night's WXMI FOX 17 Pay It Forward segment. Watch it here! What a great group of young people!

My wife and I traditionally use the extra time at home during the Thanksgiving holiday to clean out closets. I know...not real exciting, but it's a good time to put away the summer clothes and pull out the warmer stuff. I also tend to load up the car with a variety of clothes and household items we no longer use and take a ride to the Goodwill store. This year I finally got rid of a handful of ties that I haven't worn in years. Most of them were gifts from past Christmas holidays.

I'm a pretty tough person when it comes to finding an appropriate gift. Truth is I don't really want for a lot, and when I do need (want) something, I usually go out and buy it myself. I find that's true about a lot of people. So I tend to steer away from the commercial gifts and try to find something with meaning when I'm buying gifts for others.

If you're like me, I have a suggestion for the approaching holidays. We've started a "Buy A Brick" campaign to go along with our new playscape & family garden that's being constructed at the Ronald McDonald House. You can dedicate a brick and create a permanent reminder of your support of the mission of the Ronald McDonald House. Many of our supporters have chosen to have a brick engraved as a tribute to someone, making it a wonderful gift to a loved one.

You can learn more about the "Buy A Brick" campaign by clicking here. The holidays are just around the corner!

I do love Thanksgiving! What's not to like? It always falls on a Thursday, so that means a nice break from the usual long work week. There's no tradition of gift giving, so commercialism is not as prevalent. The holiday is focused on family, food and football. Like I said, my kind of holiday!

I am mindful, however, of our families who are spending the Thanksgiving holiday here at the Ronald McDonald House instead of in their own home. Holidays can be especially tough when you have a child in the hospital.

So we’re thankful for all our volunteers who take time this week to make this place a home-away-from-home for our families. We’ll have plenty of turkey with all the fixings on Thursday. People will gather around the television to watch the parade and football games. It may be an unusual Thanksgiving for our families, but it will definitely be Thanksgiving. And that's something to be thankful for!

My last intern of the semester, Kelsey Cheyne, is reporting for her final day of work today. I'm already starting to miss her! Kelsey is a senior at Central Michigan University and has been working here at the House since last summer. Even when classes started up again in the fall, Kelsey continued to put in hours at the Ronald McDonald House, working on Mondays and Fridays.

We really rely on interns here at the House, and we've had a lot of good ones! In addition to Kelsey, Kathyrn Belanger (GVSU) and Carrie Subelsky (GVSU) completed internships at RMH Western Michigan in 2011. Our interns support staff in areas of Guest Services, Volunteer Management, Marketing and Fund Development.

We're grateful to these three young women and their service to our organization. I'm confident all three will be successful as they work toward the completion of their degrees and the start of their careers. Hopefully, our next interns will step right in where Kelsey, Kathryn and Carrie left off.

If you are interested in an internship at the Ronald McDonal House of Western Michigan, or know of a college student looking for a challenging and rewarding intern experience, please contact Lisa Evans, Executive Director, at (616) 776-1300 or at levans@rmhwesternmichigan.org.

We are very excited about the progress of our new Playscape & Family Garden under construction in the backyard of the Ronald McDonald House! The project broke ground last month and most of the work should be completed by the end of this month. This addition to our House will provide a much needed outdoor play area for children and a quiet respite for parents. We're grateful to the wonderful area companies that have donated materials and labor to make this dream come true. You can learn more about the Playscape & Family Garden project (and how you can support it) by following this link.

Each year, the Board of Directors of the Ronald McDonald House of Western Michigan hosts a holiday open house. We call this special event, Home For The Holidays. It truly is a special evening. The House is beautifully decorated by our volunteers and the smells of holiday treats fills the kitchen. There will be music and entertainment and an opportunity to tour our wonderful home-away-from-home.

Home For The Holidays is on Thursday, December 15 from 6:00 - 10:00 p.m.  To RSVP for this event, please e-mail Joe Dulin, Director of Development, at jdulin@rmhwesternmichigan.org or call (616) 258-5736. Plan on stopping by and celebrating the holiday season at the Ronald mcDonald House!

We held our annual No Place Like Home Gala last Saturday, November 12 at the JW Marriott Hotel. Thanks to our wonderful corporate sponsors and individual donors, this year's event was our most successful gala ever!

Special thanks to our title sponsor for the gala, the McDonald's Owner Operators of Outstate Michigan!

We are proud to unveil our brand new Ronald McDonald House of Western Michigan website which went live today, Monday, October 17, 2011! This has been a long journey to create a whole new look. Our thanks to the great folks at Mindscape for creating a beautiful design and leading us through the birthing process. They have been terrific partners and we look forward to a long relationship as we learn to use this new site.

As you will notice, our new web address is www.rmhwesternmichigan.org. The staff e-mail address will also change to reflect the new domain, but don't worry; the old addresses will be redirected so no one should get lost in the shuffle!

We encourage you to visit all our pages on the new website and let us know what you think. Any comments (or corrections) should be directed to Joe Dulin, Director of Development, at jdulin@rmhwesternmichigan.org.

This blog is one of the new features of our website and we hope you will return frequently to discover the latest news from the House. There's also an opportunity for guest families, donors and volunteers to post to this blog. Just send us your story or blog post by using the "Share Your Story” page.

     Happy Friday Everyone!

     My name is Megan Priester and I am the Guest and Volunteer Services Manager for the House.  This means that I have the unique opportunity of interacting with over 450 families and hundreds of volunteers each year.  Each day I come to the House, I am so thankful that I get to hear the stories of the House...the families triumphs, pitfalls, and everything in between.  Being from Texas myself, I can understand how this House full of people becomes "family" to those who dwell here.

     Last night, I had the very special opportunity to speak to one of our families...the Hamstra family. Angie Hamstra and her 3 yr. old daughter, Laila, had come from Indiana to the Ronald McDonald House for the September session of the Conductive Learning Center (an intensive rehabilitation program).  Angie and her husband Jack have been foster parents for quite some time.  A little over a year ago, Angie and Jack were foster parents to this little girl, Laila.  Laila was born with cerebral palsy and had been neglected and abused as a young child with parents who left her in her crib for hours at a time because they didn’t want to deal with her special needs.  After housing Laila for a couple months, Angie and Jack permanently adopted Laila taking a child with special needs into their family with their two biological children.  Angie and Jack had to apply for grants and community support to cover the tuition and housing for the family so that Laila could attend this session of CLC.   Angie received enough donations to cover all but $175 of her total expenditures for the program.  Angie was so thankful to stay at the House…she said that when she was having the moments when she was at her worst…the House brought her back to her best.  The support from other families and the kind and caring staff made her feel at “home”.  She is excited to come back next year as she has seen Laila begin to take steps…roll over…and support her head.

     These are the stories that remind me why I love what I do at the House.  I am very fortunate to have a loving, healthy family.  I can not imagine being in the situation most of our families face on a day to day basis...a severely injured/ill child in need of all the support and love a parent can give them.  Over the coming months, I hope to continue to share with you the stories of unconditional love I hear on a day to day basis.  But for today...I will leave you with this:  I previously thought love was a special feeling between family members or "significant" others who mean a lot to us.  However, I have learned over my three years at the House that love is so much more...it is the person who sits with you when you are at your worst...it is that feeling you get when a child makes a small improvement in their condition...it is the unconditional acceptance of a person no matter where they are at and what they have done.

     The Ronald McDonald House is truly the "House that Love Built" and I encourage everyone to stop in and take a tour of this special place.

     Have a great weekend!

Our volunteers seem to be doing a record number of loads of laundry today...which means we have several families checking out of the House and on their way home! Of course, as soon as one family leaves, we seem to have another family checking in! It certainly keeps our amazing volunteers busy!

Employees from Gordon Food Service are here at the Ronald McDonald House today, fixing a great meal for our families! We always hear comments from our families about how much they appreciate seeing a hot meal waiting for them when they return after a long day at the hospital. A big thank you to Barb Beurkens and her group from the Events Division at GFS!