Ronald McDonald House is a place families from outside the area can stay when one of their children is undergoing treatment at one of our local hospitals. Sometimes families stay for a night. Sometimes they stay for weeks or months. It all depends on the situation.

When my youngest, Lauren, was 19mo old, she underwent a bone marrow transplant in Minneapolis, MN and we stayed at the RMH for six months. They fed us, housed us, and provided for so many of our needs during a time when life was overwhelming. We’ve also been back many times over the years to see specialists and we are always welcomed back with open arms.

I’ve wanted to do something for the RMH in Peoria for awhile now. Last week, we finally did!

On Wednesday, Mike and I and a few of our kids met up at the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central Illinois to make dinner for the families staying there… we had a great time.

Check out the quick video and read more below ab0ut how easy it is to be a blessing to these families by helping at RMH…

There were 6 of us on Wednesday. We met at 4:30pm with the hopes of having the dinner of pasta, meat & meatless spaghetti sauce, garlic bread, salad, and cookies ready by 5:30. We ran a little behind, but everyone was eating by 5:45ish and it wasn’t a big deal.

We brought in all the ingredients needed, but volunteer-made food has to be cooked in their commercial grade kitchen The good news is they have every gadget you might need for that along with all the seasonings.

The total grocery bill for dinner ran at just over $100 for about 50 people (including ourselves.) Depending on what you’d like to make, a band or friend group each pitching in a few items can feed a lot of people on a tight budget.

Once the food was out and the families who were present had gone through the line, we filled our plates and sat down to have a good meal together.

After that we started cleaning up. While dinner time is typically 5:30-6:15 or so, many families come through at odd hours of the day and night when taking care of their sick kids. So while some of us started cleaning up, the others started dividing leftovers between grab and go containers that are stored until they come through.

(Cleanup tip: All dishes have to be hand washed and then sanitized in a machine that takes a several minutes per cycle. If you wash dishes as you go, you can machine-sanitize some while you are eating, cutting down total cleanup time.)

When we were finished, Rebecca from RMH offered us an optional tour of the house since several in our group hadn’t been there before. Here are a few pics from the tour.

I wanted to do this with my family to begin with so I could share enough information from my experience to help others get involved too.

This is a great opportunity to serve others as a family. We had a fantastic time, ate good food, made a memory, and did good for others.

It would be amazing for this information to get out and help our RMH fill one more day per week. Whether it is families, friend groups, or bands getting together to cook, we have enough people who care about others in our music scene that we could collectively make a HUGE impact just by volunteering once or twice a year!

If our local bands or groups of musicians sign up and let me know, I’d love to stop in and take some photos to share on social media if I’m available at all that day. Or, if you take some and post them, I can share a post about you volunteering on our socials as well.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION and to sign up to make
a meal for the peoria ronald mcdonald house

Not able to help serve by making dinner? The Peoria RMH also has a wish list for things they need to keep stocked in the house… find it here: PEORIA RMH WISH LIST