The Ronald MacDonald charity is one that I am sure doesn’t immediately spring to mind as being an incredibly worthwhile charity to support. In fact, to those that don’t know of it or haven’t stayed in one, it probably conjures up images of burgers and chicken sandwiches rather than a place for the families of sick children to stay. But that’s what it does.

There are 14 Ronald MacDonald houses in the UK, each of which is attached to a hospital with a paediatric unit, and each of which provides a home for the families of children being treated in hospital. In Southampton, the Ronald MacDonald house has 53 bedrooms, and in 2016 helped 1126 families stay close to their child.

No family wants to stay in a Ronald MacDonald house, quite simply it means that your child is in hospital, but whether for one day or, like us, for an extended period of time, the Ronald MacDonald house offers a safe place to sleep, communal kitchens and places for families to exist together. The families that stay there stay there for free. Moreover it takes away the stress of having to find somewhere to stay and anxiety of being more than 5 minutes away from your child on the ward.

Ronald MacDonald houses are not funded by MacDonalds and they are not hotels seeking to make money from people’s misfortune, they are fully funded by charitable donations – including the plastic houses located on MacDonalds counters.

As with everything in our journey, nothing counts more than the people who work in these places and bring them to life. They are not trained counsellors, psycho therapists or medical professionals, yet for those families that stay in a Ronald MacDonald house, they can just make the difference. This is as much to say thank you to them.

Thank you for supporting this charity.