One of my favorite philanthropies is Ronald McDonald House Charities. If you have not heard of them before, their mission “allows parents who are far from home to stay close to their hospitalized child and benefit from the comforts of home without incurring hotel and food costs.” While I’m an enthusiast, I’m not an expert. I encourage you to read more about RMHC here. However, in honor of April being National Volunteer Month, I thought I would share my favorite ways you can give back to your local RMHC, even though in-person opportunities are limited. Without further ado, here are eight ways you can give back to your local Ronald McDonald House.
Collect Pop Tabs
The Ron House collects and recycles the pull tabs off pop cans, soup, and other aluminum cans. The money raised from recycling tabs helps offset costs or goes towards a specific project! One year, my local RMHC used the funds to build a brand new playground. Collecting pop tabs is easy! I’ve decorated and handed out pop tab jars to family and friends – even local businesses. Once people know you’ve started collecting them, you’ll get numerous plastic baggies throughout the year!
Volunteer at Your Local House
Physical volunteering was more of a pre-COVID activity. Many houses took volunteers, individuals or groups, that would come in and take shifts cleaning and cooking. My family used to volunteer at least once a year, but we have not gone to the house since 2019. However, I have such fond memories of physically volunteering here, and I hope once things return to “normal,” I’m able to volunteer in person again.
Sponsor Dinner
Recently, I’ve seen an increase in local companies and vendors donating a catered meal to their local RMHC. Whether it is subs, pasta, or pizza, I’m sure they appreciate the pre-made meals. I’ve even seen local Chick-fil-As donating chicken sandwiches. While this may not be up your alley, just know this is also an option to give back!
Donate Wish List Items
Check your local RMHC’s website or social media to see if they have a “wish list” posted. An organization I’m in actually collected some of the items RMHCs wished for, in this case, different cleaning supplies. Anything helps, and it is more fun to collect items as a group! Your sorority, various college organizations, your place of employment – anyone can help you collect items.
Host Donation Drive
I’ve helped organize a holiday toy drive for families staying at the House during the holiday season. We also helped package individual goodie bags full of tissues, chapstick, travel shampoo and conditioner, gum, and more to distribute to guests. There was even a time we collected a variety of board games to donate. Think holidays – Halloween, Valentine’s Day, etc. Feel free to pick an occasion and run with it!
Write Cards to RMHC Staff
A super simple and kind thing to do for the staff is to write them cards. Take a card with a fun cover design and write a message of appreciation or thanks. The more cards, the merrier! Once you have some completed, drop them off at the House to be distributed to employees.
Donate
While this one is less creative than decorating cards, collecting pop tabs, or organization a donation drive, donating money is just as important and appreciated by local RMHCs. Nowadays, it is extremely easy to organize a Facebook fundraiser.
AmazonSmile
One of the easiest ways to give back to your local RMHC is by setting them as your charitable organization every time you shop on Amazon. There’s no catch. When purchasing on Amazon, make sure you go through smile.amazon.com, and 0.5% of your eligible purchases are donated to that charity. The hardest part is just remembering to go through AmazonSmile’s website and not the regular Amazon website. While it may not seem like a lot, the percentages add up. I love receiving my quarterly update of how much money my community and I raised. You can choose to support the national RMHC or your individual House.
While these eight different ways to give back to your local Ronald McDonald House and Ronald McDonald House Charities are incredibly different, I hope you’ll take part in one or two of the choices. Even if you want to support another charity this month, take some of these ideas! Whatever cause you support, I highly encourage giving back to your community. Let me know if you are going to participate in some activities during National Volunteer Month! I’d love to hear from you.
Cheers!
Lydia
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