Organization Support and Collaboration: Thompson Center & Ronald McDonald House Charities

The Thompson Center has collaborated with the Ronald McDonald House for years. We want to highlight some of the ways that the organizations have been supporting each other over the last several months. 

On June 11, the Ronald McDonald House Charities had the grand opening of their new facility on College Avenue. This relocation put the new Ronald McDonald House closer to the new MU Children’s Hospital that opened in June. This new facility currently has 24 private guest rooms for families to stay in for free while their child is receiving medical treatment nearby. The Thompson Center sponsored one of the new private guest rooms in the Ronald McDonald House!

Not only does the Ronald McDonald House provide a place for families to stay overnight, but they also provide a private space for families to use if they are not spending the night and just need a place to go during the day. The day pass room gives families a place to relax and stay while their child receives treatment during the day. Families at the Thompson Center have utilized this private space when their children have had long days of clinical care.

The Ronald McDonald House gives the opportunity to provide a meal to families who are spending their time taking care of their children in the hospital. The Thompson Center Business and Admin team prepared a meal for 33-55 people in June and the Operations team prepared a meal in July.

Along with being able to provide meals for the families, the Thompson Center also collected and dropped off over 5 gallons of aluminum pull tabs to the Ronald McDonald House. These aluminum pull tabs will be recycled, and the money received from recycling is used to help support the Ronald McDonald House programs.

Lunch on the House is a Ronald McDonald House program that provides complimentary lunches to families. The Ronald McDonald House has been able to provide several of these lunches for children and their families in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy at the Thompson Center.   

The collaboration between the Thompson Center and the Ronald McDonald House Charities has provided more opportunities to support families, and the center looks forward to continuing this collaboration and support.