Ronald McDonald House Charities of Arkansas & North Louisiana

Ronald McDonald House Charities of Arkansas & North Louisiana provides essential services that remove barriers, strengthen families, and promote healing when children need healthcare. All services are provided free to families, thanks to generous local donors. Currently, there are three programs and three more in development. The Ronald McDonald House in Little Rock, AR has 32 family suites that provide a private room and a safe haven for families of hospitalized children to be together. Meals, laundry, play spaces, and many other comforts of home are provided as well as an environment that fosters a community of support between families who are uniquely experiencing the same unimaginable circumstances. The Ronald McDonald Family Room at UAMS is a 4 bedroom retreat within the hospital just steps from the NICU. Families there receive the same level of care and services as the House. Additionally, families not staying overnight are able to use the facilities for "day-use," allowing them to come have a meal, a cup of coffee, snack, take a shower, wash a load of laundry, or just regroup for a moment. The Ronald McDonald Care Mobile is a 40-ft mobile dental clinic that travels to elementary schools and low income communities to provide free dental care to underserved children. In development: The Ronald McDonald House Shreveport-Bossier will be the first House in Northwest Louisiana. There is currently a capital campaign to raise funds to build a 20 bedroom House that will support tens of thousands of families for years to come. Grand opening is planned for summer of 2025 The Ronald McDonald Family Room at St. Francis Medical Center will be located in Monroe, Louisiana and will have four bedrooms. This location will provide essential support and day-use space, which will be vital for families in this community. The Ronald McDonald House at Baptist Health will be our first in hospital House in central Arkansas and will have six bedrooms with more than 6,000 square feet to serve families. This location will be conveniently located on the Mezzanine level right near the main hospital front entrance. It will be the second House in Little Rock. For more information please visit our website - RMHCAR-NLA.org

A world where children have access to the healthcare they need, and their family is by their side ev

Goal One: Listening to the families we serve we will implement new and creative solutions to meet their needs with a top-tier team of employees and volunteers to care for them with empathy and compassion.

Goal Two: To better meet families' needs in our territory, we will assess short and long-term expansion opportunities. We will increase our donor base/partnerships within our territory to accomplish this.

Goal Three: Strengthen and diversify our organization to ensure capacity in a growth period, critical to successful expansion as we increase access to quality healthcare for all across our territory.

In Q1 2020, when in-person educational opportunities ceased due to the pandemic, we commenced a robust training and personal/professional development initiative, making LinkedIn Learning and other similar programs available to staff. The consensus from staff is that these resources have been extremely beneficial in learning new ideas, technology, interpersonal skills, and creating efficiencies. We fund dues for and encourage staff to be actively involved in professional development organizations that will enhance their skills and development and arrange for industry experts to train them remotely.

Our organization is funded entirely through donations. We receive no federal or state funding, or insurance reimbursement. We are able to provide services thanks to generous donors. After the pandemic was declared, we were faced with two large challenges - how do we replace lost income from so many canceled fundraising events, and how do we serve families when the healthcare delivery system imposed stringent restrictions on family access to patients in the hospital. When our fundraising avenues all but dissolved, we dove deep, developing and implementing a new fundraising strategy. With an anticipated shortfall, we ended the year with a surplus. And to address the needs of families, we created a mobile meal program, preparing and delivering over 20,000 meals including breakfast bags, hearty snack bags (including a microwaveable meal, fresh fruit and other snack items), and hot dinners to parents who were hospital bound at their child's bedside due to COVID exposure concerns. Additionally, we provided parents with personal care bags, including items they needed to feel refreshed after long days in the hospital. When we were unable to allow families in the House who could not meet our stringent COVID-19 safety protocols for community living, we paid for their short-term stays in a suite-style hotel nearby. This was done in order to protect families with the most vulnerable little patients who were staying in the House. These initiatives have permanently changed the way we fundraise to ensure financial stability of our organization and its mission , and enhanced the ways we continue to serve families.