Q&A with Barb Abell of Ronald McDonald House Charities of the Ohio Valley
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In October, Ronald McDonald House Charities of the Ohio Valley celebrated the fifth anniversary of its Deaconess Gateway location in Newburgh as well as the global organization’s 50th anniversary. The Evansville-based nonprofit, which started in 1988, also has a location on Washington Avenue.
Development Manager Barb Abell spoke with Inside INdiana Business about the organization’s work and challenges from the pandemic that continue to linger.
What is RMHC of the Ohio Valley’s mission?
Our mission is to keep families together when they have a child in the hospital. That’s the basic mission, but it extends further than that. It’s helping kiddos have access to health care.
We have two houses in our area. One in front of Ascension St. Vincent Hospital—that’s a 10 sleeping room hotel—and then one in Medical Office Building 5 at Deaconess Gateway hospital, and that’s a 16 room hotel. Those rooms are meant to take care of families while they have children in the hospital.
We also have a Happy Wheels Cart program, which is a cart that rolls into hospitals in our area as well as Tell City, Jasper, Vincennes, Madisonville, Henderson and surrounding areas. That’s a cart that has snacks, drinks and a drawer that rolls out on the side with toys.
That cart, depending on the hospital, will visit neonatal intensive care units, pediatric intensive care units, maternity wards, nurses stations and waiting areas to offer a respite from a hospital setting. A kiddo’s in their room, and you roll into their room—if you’re allowed—and open up the drawer, and they see a Lego, and they love Legos, and it changes things.
We have another program that will be rolling out in March, and that is a Care Mobile, which is a perinatal and neonatal mobile. It’s stocked with equipment to take care of a pregnant mother through the birth of her child and her child turning one, and it’s going to be parked in at-risk neighborhoods in Vanderburgh County.
Tell me about the Deaconess Gateway location celebrating its 5th anniversary.
The Gateway location turned five on Oct. 15, the same day that the global Ronald McDonald House Charities turned 50.
We have amazing medical partners. And even though our city is a smaller city, each hospital wanted to have their own Ronald McDonald House to take care of the families of their patients.
How is your organization celebrating RMHC’s 50th anniversary?
We’ve been celebrating the whole year because it is a big deal for a charity to be around for 50 years. And we’re all over the world. Every Ronald McDonald House is its own 501(c)(3). We have the global entity, but we don’t receive direct funding from them. We’re responsible 100% for all of our operating expenses.
But what’s cool is it doesn’t matter where the RMHC is. They have programs for the community that they’re in, what makes sense. In our case, with the Care Mobile, we’re adding that program because Indiana has some of the highest infant and maternal mortality rates in the United States. And southern Indiana is the highest in the state of Indiana.
What are the challenges faced by your organization?
Our house runs on volunteers at the front desk from 7 in the morning until 9 p.m. and then from 9 p.m. until 7 a.m., we have third-shift staff. That’s 365 days a year, 24/7. Somebody has to be at the front desk, just like a hotel. Since the pandemic, we’ve never come back from that. That’s still our biggest need for volunteers is our front desk.
It’s a wonderful experience. I believe you always get more than you give. Those shifts are two or three hours long. It’s not a real long time. If we don’t have those shifts covered, then staff has to cover. And if we have to cover those, then we’re not able to do our work. So it’s important that we have those volunteer shifts covered.
Another thing the pandemic wiped out was our Meals of Love program. Every day, we try to be committed to have one home-cooked meal for the families. Prior to the pandemic, we had to have a calendar for breakfast, lunch and dinner. There were so many meals being made that you’d have to post a calendar at the beginning of the week so families knew what it was and when it was going to be here.
Now, maybe in any given week, we’ll have a handful of those meals. What that means is our guest services manager at each house has to figure something out. They have to get volunteers to make a meal or they have to order in pizza or make something themselves so that we can provide one homemade meal each day.
We have a fully stocked pantry that’s available for families all the time. We keep the same things in our pantry that you’d have in your pantry at home. Whenever someone does make a meal, and there are always leftovers, those are packaged up by a volunteer and dated and stored in the refrigerator so that future meals can be made. We try to purchase all of the staple foods like milk, juice, bread, yogurt, eggs, cheese, condiments and salad dressings.
What events are coming up for RMHC of the Ohio Valley?
On Feb. 28, we have our Wine & Fries event, which is an annual event. This year, it’s going to be at Friedman Park. That is dinner, music, entertainment, auction and a wine pull. McDonald’s is the main sponsor. In addition to the food that we’re serving, they’re on site making fries and we’re passing out fries all evening.
On Feb. 7, we have, for the first time, a Laughs for Love event in Madisonville, Kentucky. That event is traditionally held in Jasper every other year. We decided to take it to a different city during the off year. It’s dinner and a comedian and a mission moment where we’re going to talk about what we do.
What should people know about your organization that they may not be aware of?
The fact that we have two locations. Gateway opened up in October right before COVID. Then in March, I say it’s the Etch-a-Sketch, whatever had come before, there’s no memory of any of that because everything was so different. People don’t know we have two locations, so when we are raising funds, it’s not just for the one house they know about. There are two. And the second one’s larger.
I’d also say people think we are funded by global RMHC or owned by McDonald’s or the hospital that we affiliate with. None of that is true. We’re an independent nonprofit responsible for ourselves. McDonald’s does support us through sponsorships and Round-Up for RMHC, which is a huge part of our budget. The hospitals also financially support us, but it’s not inherent. We ask them each year for their support, just like we would ask a bank or any other business.
How can someone get involved with RMHC of the Ohio Valley?
Our website has everything about us there. If you go to the tab that says “Ways to Help”, you could sign up to do a meal. Or if you’re interested in volunteering, that’s where you choose that dropdown. There’s just a quick form that you complete that goes directly to our volunteer coordinator. And she will reach out once she receives that form that has your contact information and some of your interests.
I’d encourage people to reach out to us and come on a tour. I’ve never given a tour where at the end the person says, “This is exactly what I thought it was.” The response is always, “Oh, my goodness, I had no idea you were that big. I didn’t know everybody had their own sleeping room, like a hotel. I didn’t know that you had a Happy Wheels Cart.” You can come stand in our mission to see where your time or money goes.