AbbVie donates $2.3M for new Ronald McDonald House at Mercy
BUSINESS RECORD STAFF Aug 31, 2018 | 7:10 pm
2 min read time
423 wordsAll Latest News, Arts and CultureRonald McDonald House Des Moines has received the single largest cash gift in its history — $2.3 million — as part of a $100 million donation from global biopharmaceutical company AbbVie Inc. to Ronald McDonald House.
The gift kicks off the Des Moines charity’s “You Are the Key to Our House” capital campaign. The $4 million campaign will fund a Ronald McDonald House at Mercy Medical Center. Construction is slated to begin in January. When completed by late summer 2019, the new facility will increase the nonprofit’s capacity to serve Central Iowa families by 40 percent.
In 2017, Ronald McDonald House-Central Iowa served over 400 families from across Iowa, 47 percent of which were Mercy patients. The Ronald McDonald House Family Room currently at Mercy regularly exceeds its capacity, leading many families to be directed to the House two miles away, which poses a significant challenge for families needing to stay in close proximity to their child at Mercy.
Notably, the new Ronald McDonald House will be built on the fourth floor of Mercy Children’s Hospital. Brenda Miller, executive director of Ronald McDonald House-Central Iowa, said fewer than a dozen Ronald McDonald Houses in the country are located within hospitals. “It’s a fairly new concept,” she said.
The new Ronald McDonald House will provide nightly accommodations for out-of-town families as well as providing respite for day guests. It will feature 14 bedrooms and all the home-like amenities needed to help keep families close.
“We are excited to further expand our services to Mercy by providing a new comforting home, a safe refuge and a community of families supporting each other in difficult times for families with young child patients,” said Mark Hasek, senior vice president of Graham Construction and president of the Ronald McDonald House Des Moines board.
“It is very important for a child’s family to be able to stay close during medical treatment, and having a House within the hospital will allow us to accomplish this goal.” said Dr. Cary Murphy, Ronald McDonald House Des Moines board member and a neonatologist at Mercy Children’s Hospital.
AbbVie’s $100 million donation, announced by the company earlier this month, is part of the company’s commitment to make an additional $350 million in charitable donations to nonprofit partners in 2018. In May, AbbVie announced $50 million donations each to Habitat for Humanity International and Direct Relief for disaster relief in Puerto Rico. The biopharmaceutical company was formed in 2013 as a separate company from Abbott to develop innovative advanced therapies for complex and critical conditions.