New home will provide an important service

The Ronald McDonald House opened a third New Jersey location in New Brunswick last week, and is now ready to serve area families with ailing children. The Somerset Street facility can accommodate six families at a time, and is conveniently located near the Bristol-Myers Squibb Children’s Hospital at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, as well as the Cancer Institute of New Jersey.

There can be few times as stressful, sleepless and lonely for parents as when their child is struggling with health problems, and financial hardships will certainly compound those feelings. As the frightening costs of medical care mount, parents sometimes have no choice but to pile on the debt, hope for their child’s recovery and worry about the financial ramifications later.

The Ronald McDonald House can certainly ease the burden for some families who would normally have to pay for hotel stays and restaurants, or take a long, late-night drive home. The home asks for a $10-per-night donation but will not turn away families who are unable to pay.

Although the Ronald McDonald House is a charity sponsored by the fast-food giant, it is not entirely funded by the corporation. The home’s success will largely depend on local volunteers, and it is a cause that we feel is certainly worthy of support from residents of nearby communities. According to Corrinne LeBaron, executive director, volunteers can help out in a number of ways, including cooking, working around the house or fund raising.

Some have associated McDonald’s with soulless mass production, to a point where the company’s name has inspired a small vocabulary of words with negative connotations, like McMansion. But this facility is an example of an operation under a corporate banner that will make a definite difference in our community over time.