Ronald McDonald House in Ottawa doubles capacity

We learn how Ronald McDonald House is serving more families and helping them stay together.

Ottawa’s Ronald McDonald House is marking an expansion of its services, offering a home away from home for more families with critically ill children.

The non-profit has more than doubled its capacity, with 36 bedrooms, up from 14.

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Ronald McDonald House Ottawa CEO Christine Hardy told CTV Your Morning Ottawa on Monday that the expansion means the waitlist for a room has been eliminated.

“It means we can say yes to all families who need a place to stay when their child is ill, and they need to travel to Ottawa,” Hardy said. “For many years, we’ve operated with a really long wait list, and we’ve had to turn away families. And now that we’ve expanded from 14 to 36 suites, we have room for everyone.”

According to a news release, the expansion means Ronald McDonald House Ottawa can accommodate an estimated 1,300 families per year, up from 500 a year previously.

Ronald McDonald House Ottawa offers a place for families to stay while a child is receiving critical medical care that would normally require constant trips to and from the hospital.

“We offer hot meals every day, free snacks, coffee, and tea. We have lots of programming. We have a craft room. We have a gym. We have shared spaces, private spaces,” said Hardy. “I would say, most importantly, what we do is we offer families the comforts of home, so they can focus on what they need to focus on, which is the recovery of their child.”

The expansion also allowed for a lowering of the eligibility distance, from 80 kilometres to 60.

“The only criteria to stay at Ronald McDonald House is that you live too far away to be able to commute back and forth, and 80 kilometres is still quite a distance,” said Hardy. “So, this capacity building that we have done has not only allowed us to eliminate our wait list, but it’s also allowed us to welcome families who were still living too far to go back and forth.”

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Hardy says Ronald McDonald House still needs donations and volunteers.

“We are serving many, many more families every year, thousands more every year. And in order to offer them what we offer them, we rely completely on community support. So, we rely on donations, and we rely heavily on volunteers,” she said.

“If you can spare a donation, or if you can spare your time, please reach out to Ronald McDonald House Ottawa, we would love to meet you.”

On its website, the non-profit says it gets about a third of its revenue from McDonald’s Canada, through events such as McHappy Day, through the sales of Happy Meals and Caring Cookies, and through rounding up the price of orders at restaurants to the nearest dollar.

An official grand opening ceremony for the expansion is scheduled to take place on July 13.