Our Trip to the Ronald McDonald House
By AnneMarie Monachino

The Ronald McDonald House (RMH) is a charitable organization that provides a “home-away-from-home” for families so they can stay close by their hospitalized child at little or no cost.  When families return from a long day at the hospital with their sick child, a home-cooked meal is often just what they need. The RMH welcomes groups that are willing to provide a meal.

On Sunday, August 23, 2012 a group of volunteers representing the Nursing of Children Network (NCN) traveled to the Wilmington Ronald McDonald House to prepare dinner for families of patients at Nemours/A.I. duPont Hospital for Children.  Jenna Ryan, a NCN member from Nemours together with AnneMarie Monachino, NCN President, organized the event. We decided on “Breakfast for Dinner” as our theme to offer the families something different from a typical dinner.

Our charge was to prepare dinner for 80 people which seemed a little overwhelming at first. Our menu consisted of: scrambled eggs, French toast casserole, ham and cheese casserole, sausage and mushroom casserole, pancakes, bacon, sausage, strawberries and blueberries, yogurt, apple and orange juice, milk and finally Danish for desert.

Libby Brady from Bayada Nurses , Jenna Ryan and AnneMarie Monachino together with friends and family met at the RMH at 2:00 pm. After unloading our cars and discovering the lay of the kitchen we decided to divide and conquer. We were pleasantly surprised by the kitchen facility which rivaled the kitchen of a restaurant (2 large stoves with griddles, 3 ovens) and contained all the necessary pots and pans. We had to bring the food and our own aluminum pans in which to serve the food, otherwise everything else was provided.

Our young helpers washed and cut up fruit while the adults got to frying bacon, baking the sausage and the casseroles, scrambling 80 eggs, and flipping over 200 pancakes. At 5:15pm, after 3 hours of being on our feet cooking, laughing, and enjoying each other’s company, we were ready to serve dinner.

It was gratifying to watch the people enjoy the home cooked meal and offer their gratitude.  Once we made sure the warmers were filled as portions became depleted the group took a few minutes to satisfy their own hunger and enjoy the food they prepared. Clean up was made easy by all the hands pitching in Extra food was wrapped and refrigerated for later that evening or breakfast the next day. The staff of the Ronald McDonald House then took us on a tour of the facility which was truly set up to be a home away from home.

A small act of kindness on our part left us all feeling like our Sunday afternoon was well spent.

While we did not provide physical nursing care to patients, we provided their caregivers with nourishment and a few minutes respite from the worries of the day.

Nursing is both an art and a science, and this experience represented the true art of nursing.