Home, Sweet Home

Going back to the Ronald McDonald House at night is like going back to my parents’ home. There’s a fire burning in the fireplace and a plate of food set aside in the fridge just for me.

Written by a mother staying at the Ronald McDonald House, her entry in the house journal says it all. According to their website, the Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC, http://www.rmhc.com) offers “a home away from home for families of seriously ill children receiving treatment at nearby hospitals.” And it is truly a home – when I volunteered to cook dinner there recently I was greeted by a roaring fire, overstuffed furniture, plants and warm lighting. It was the kind of atmosphere that made me forget – almost – why I was there and instead tempted me to grab a blanket, dive into the couch and read Oprah’s latest magazine.

As I prepared my mom’s award-winning chicken/pineapple/rice entree, broccoli with garlic and cashews and just-add-water chocolate cake alone in the kitchen, I wasn’t quite convinced that this experience would be rewarding. When I put everything in crock pots to keep them warm, I had no idea if my comfort food would actually provide some relief to a weary, traumatized family or if it went straight into Tupperware then into the freezer.

Then Ann, the night manager, gently schwacked me upside the head and showed me that (duuuh) it wasn’t about me. She educated me on the glory of anonymous volunteering. She told me how sometimes frazzled and exhausted parents burst into tears when they smell and see homemade food prepared just for them by people they will never meet but who cared enough to make the effort. She reminded me that every time a family makes a fast food run it is yet one more reminder to them that they are not home where they belong. Instead, they sit bedside all day watching their child fight a life-altering or life-threatening illness.

She told me about their other volunteers who clean rooms, wash linens and cook meals, all anonymously, who enjoy doing these acts of kindness precisely because it’s a secret.

Ann showed me that just like Santa’s elves, RMHC volunteers do their best work when no one is around. And just like the elves, Ronald McDonald House volunteers keep coming back, returning again and again, year after year.

There was something immensely rewarding about anonymous volunteering – maybe it was the secrecy and intrigue. Whatever the case, it was just one more reason to love volunteering, and for all of us to find those special projects that rock our universe.

Let’s keep looking for them.

Get out and give back.