The purpose of Ronald McDonald House Charities Northern Nevada is to bridge the service gaps in our community by playing an integral role in meeting the health and educational needs of children, with care and compassion. Our efforts are focused on directly improving the health, education and well-being of children and their families.
While we cannot make medicine taste better or take away painful treatments, we can help ease the financial and emotional burden a family faces when their child is sick. Through our programs, we ensure more than 700 families a year gain resources that improve their child’s health and wellness. We rely on the generosity of thousands of donors, the ingenuity of local volunteers, and the dedication of our staff to operate our programs.
1. The RMHC Northern Nevada Scholarship Program
The RMHC Northern Nevada Scholarship Program awards more than $100,000 in scholarships to students from northern Nevada every year. In 2017, 105 students received scholarships; of those, 64-66 percent were the first in their family to attend college. Each scholarship is valued at $1,000 per student, per year.
Since 2000, the program has awarded more than $1.34 million in scholarships to 765 students from northern Nevada. The funding for all first-year scholarships is raised by our local scholarship committee. The renewable awards are funded through the RMHC general fund, which currently does not have a match.
We have three funding priorities for the Scholarship Program:
- Raise $18,500 per year for the RMHC Northern Nevada Scholarship Program.
- Raise $67,000 per year for renewable scholarships.
- Grow a $2 million scholarship endowment to create program that will, over time, become self-funded.
2. The Ronald McDonald Family Room
Research shows that a family presence in the hospital helps children heal faster and cope better. Staying close by their child in the hospital allows parents to better communicate with their child’s medical team and improves adherence to complicated treatment plans. The Ronald McDonald Family Room, located on the 4th floor of Renown Children’s Hospital, opened in the spring of 2012. The primary purpose of the room is to offer a place of respite for parents so that they can better support their hospitalized child.
The room is a comfortable, quiet retreat where family members can eat, rest, decompress, and participate in consultations with their children’s medical team, in private, without having to leave the unit. The room is staffed by RMHC volunteers and is open every day from 9:00 am – 9:00 pm. A nearby sleep room is open 24 hours a day.
The Ronald McDonald Family Room has helped families with more than 19,176 visits to the room. Operating and replacement costs in 2016 were $48,541.