Adopt-a-Family/Room

Help Provide a “Home-Away-From-Home”

By adopting a family, you can help ensure that families receiving treatment at local hospitals still have a place to call “home” that includes:

• A comfortable place to sleep that is clean and a welcoming shelter for the families who must travel to Birmingham to seek care for a sick newborn or child or who is receiving medical care that is not available in their home community
• The ability to have close proximity to their hospitalized child
• The possibility to enable the family unit to remain together, thus providing a source of support to one another
• Financial relief they desperately need
• Ongoing support from staff, volunteers and other families
• Shared common areas, where families receive support from each other
• Home-cooked meals by the hundreds of volunteers on a daily basis
• Laundry facilities and WiFi internet access
• Fun activities and entertainment

Adopt-a-Family

Adopt-a-Family at Ronald McDonald House Charities of Alabama and know that you are helping children win the fight against life-threatening illnesses. Studies show that when a child is hospitalized, the love and support of a family is as powerful as the strongest medicine prescribed. These children and their families need more than doctors and medicine to become well again, and you can be the one who helps provide it.

You can make sure that after surgeries and medical tests, children can leave the hospital and play with friends at our House, instead of going back to the isolation of a hotel or sleep in the child’s hospital room, the hospital lobby, or worse yet their cars. You can help parents sleep better and worry less by providing them with a warm and welcoming home and by helping to alleviate their financial stress. While the actual cost associated with housing and support services provided by the House is more than $95 a night,  the suggested donation of $10 a night, but any donation is acceptable to help with the costs of the room. However, fewer than half of these families served are able to make any contribution at all. No family is turned away due to inability to pay.

In 2015 we served 705 families with the average stay at 19 days.

RMHCA receives $0 in federal or state grants. 100% of the donations stay in Birmingham to support the families we serve throughout the state. 100% of donations made directly to RMHCA remain in our community.

By adopting one or more of our guest families, your generosity will help provide the love and support they need to get through this difficult time.

Download our Adopt-a-Family Flyer

For more information contact: Kathy.Robson@rmhca.org

Adopt-a-Room

Adopt-a-Room at Ronald McDonald House Charities of Alabama and know that you are providing children with an uplifting place where they can recover after painful surgeries and treatments at the hospital. Your generosity can give them a “home-away-from-home” where they can be surrounded by their family and their favorite toys. You can help families through their challenging days by allowing them to get a good night’s rest and to relax without constant interruptions from nurses and doctors.

When you become an annual sponsor of a guest room, you are helping us provide families with much more than a roof over their heads. You are helping provide comfort, relief from their stressful situations, a sense of normalcy, and the opportunity for families to find each other and create their own supportive network.

Also, when you Adopt-a-Room, you will help ensure the ongoing financial sustainability of RMHCA and enable you to literally be part of our Ronald McDonald House every day. At the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Alabama, we currently have 41 rooms total. We have five rooms (large) that sleep five, twelve rooms that sleep four and 24 that sleep three.

With an average 97% occupancy rate each year, we refurbish five guest rooms twice each year on a rotating basis. Thus every four years each guest room is freshly painted and old linens are replaced with bright, cheerful new quilts, complete with fresh pillows and matching shams. In addition, severely worn furniture and other amenities are replaced.

This much needed revitalization helps the families get the rest they need after a long, hard day of stress and worry at the hospital. If you are interested in the Adopt-a-Room Program please contact Kathy Robson, Director of Development at 205-638-7258 or kathy.robson@rmhca.org.

You can help families in need by selecting one of the following options:

Recognition for our Adopt-a-Room Donors

We honor our Adopt-a-Room donors in many special ways, including but not limited to:

• A plaque on the door of the room you are adopting for a year that shows the families staying in the room and all who tour the House you support of our mission
• A personal plaque for you to display proudly
• Recognition on our donor wall and in our annual report
• An invitation to tour our House to see firsthand the impact you are making on the lives of families in need
• Name listed on our website and social media shout out
• First right of renewal each year

The Perfect Gift

Adopt-a-Family and Adopt-a-Room donations make the perfect gift and provides a unique opportunity to honor family or friends, to celebrate a special occasion, or to remember a loved one who has passed away.

You Can Double Your Impact

Many companies have matching gift programs. Check with your company’s human resources department or payroll department to see if they can double the impact of your gift by matching it.

For more information

To learn more about how your organization could benefit from partnering with the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Alabama, contact Kathy Robson, Director of Development 205-638-7258 or kathy.robson@rmhca.org.