If Florence is your adopted home, you’ll know the importance of being surrounded by family. But no one understands the importance of family better than the children at Casa Ronald in Firenze. Located down the street from Meyer Pediatric Hospital, the Ronald McDonald House in Florence hosts eight families whose children are receiving critical medical care at Meyer. The ‘Casa Ronald’ is the most recent addition to a group of case the Ronald McDonald Foundation has been opening in Italy since 1999.
Although the Ronald McDonald Foundation is a familiar organization in the United States, it is less known internationally. The foundation firmly believes that the best medicine for a sick child is to be with his or her family and establishes houses near major pediatric hospitals where children and their families can stay.
Since opening in 2013, Casa Ronald in Florence has hosted more than 310 families—850 people—free of cost. More importantly, their seriously ill children have had the benefit of access to excellent medical care as well as a real home in which they can eat, sleep, play, study and just be children.
It takes many helping hands to make this ‘home away from home’ for those who are coping with serious illness and lengthy treatments. Thus, an important aspect of each ‘Casa Ronald’ and the Ronald McDonald Foundation is the generosity of volunteers, whether it is time, money or both. Volunteers can donate their time, become a member and annual supporter of the foundation and the Casa Ronald—or even just ‘like’ the foundation on Facebook.
For more information, see the Facebook page CasaRonaldMcDonaldFirenze or visit www.fondazioneronald.it.
