CCE Ronald McDonald House

This semester I volunteered at the Ronald McDonald House. This organization is not really related to my semester topic. The reason that I decided to volunteer at the Ronald McDonald House is because I enjoy helping others and every single child staying at this home is battling cancer and I believe that sometimes all they require is someone to be there to support them and tell them that everything will be okay. So to be that person for these children and a few other reasons, I decided to volunteer at the Ronald McDonald House even though it did not directly connect to my semester topic. I did expect something a little different from this volunteer station, but I was usually cleaning, doing laundry or making beds while I was there. Every now and then I was able to give the children who were staying at the home ice cream and I enjoyed that because it made the children happy. Every now and then I was also able to interact with the children and talk to them, which I found the best part of this volunteer experience. Overall, I enjoyed the experience at the Ronald McDonald House, but I disliked all of the cleaning that we had to do. The Ronald McDonald House gives families whose children are battling cancer a home, usually for a very low fee or completely for free if the families are not able to afford it. Families have their own room; there are two living rooms, two dining rooms, a kitchen and a playground for the children in the house. I learned that there are so many cases of children battling cancer in our own community and often families are not able to afford the care, treatments and medications needed to fight this long, hard battle. Although these children and families were suffering, I never once saw them sad. This changed my perspective and made me realize that I have so many things to be thankful for. These children are forced to fight for their lives every single day and they never give up, lose hope or stop fighting. I do plan to continue to volunteer there every now and then, not as often as I was doing for this class, because I unfortunately do not have the time to go every week. Also, for volunteers who go every week, you mostly clean, but I would much rather interact with the children and be able to talk to them and the families.