Comfy at Ronald's House

"I didn’t know much about it—I knew it was for kids with cancer and I stopped by one day,” says Holly Smith-Pelkey about the Ronald McDonald House in Bangor. Her oldest daughter, Elizabeth, was diagnosed with leukemia about 9 years ago. “I was pretty overwhelmed at that point.”

Smith-Pelkey, her husband, Brian, their three kids, Elizabeth, Hillary, and Jacob, and a foreign exchange student from Japan were living at Holly’s parents campground on Jo-Mary Lake for the summer when Elizabeth started complaining of a sore back. “It happened really quickly,” Smith-Pelkey says.

Soon Elizabeth was staying at Eastern Maine Medical Center. Holly and Brian left the two younger kids with their grandparents, but it was a complete disruption to family life. Holly was a stay-at-home mom who homeschooled her kids; Brian worked at the paper mill in East Millinocket, and tried to travel back and forth to Bangor as much as possible despite his shiftwork. “The kids were miserable,” Smith-Pelkey says. “They wanted to be with Elizabeth.”

When Elizabeth woke up one night in the hospital, screaming from a nightmare about her siblings, Smith-Pelkey stopped in at the Ronald McDonald House to inquire about accommodations. “We all moved in and stayed there for a month,” she says.

Elizabeth is now 20, and a sophomore at Grove City College in Pennsylvania. The family’s stay at Ronald McDonald House during her cancer treatment, says her mom, made a pivotal difference. “We couldn’t have done it without the Ronald McDonald House,” Holly says. “It’s an incredible little jewel.”
With clean and secure accommodations, home-cooked meals, and a house manager who lives on the premises, Bangor’s Ronald McDonald House helps families focus their energy and attention on their sick child by providing food and shelter.

While it is only one of two in the state (the other house is in Portland), there are actually about 270 Ronald McDonald Houses worldwide in 28 countries, 158 of them in the U.S.

Most of the families that stay at the house in Bangor are from Aroostook and Washington Counties and have a child sick with cancer or have given birth prematurely. Needy families pay nothing to stay in the Ronald McDonald House, but must have a referral from their doctor. It costs nothing to stay, no matter how long. “We would never ask anyone for money,” says executive director and house manager Patricia Beckwith. The house relies solely on the generosity of local and national donors and volunteers.

The Ronald McDonald House in Bangor can accommodate up to 14 families at a time. Each family is assigned a room that includes two beds, a dresser, a small sink, sheets, and towels. A basket of small soaps, toothpaste, shampoos and lotion sits on each dresser. One bathroom is shared between two families. Each room can hold four adults, or two adults and three children, max.

There are no televisions or telephones in the rooms. There are, however, a few living rooms where families can congregate after a long day at the hospital and read books, watch TV or movies, or just talk. There’s also a playroom with toys and books, and an outdoor deck that overlooks a playground. The idea is to combine the privacy of a hotel room with the family atmosphere of shared spaces.

“It’s meant to be a community experience for people to interact with each other,” Beckwith says.

Patricia Beckwith has been a part of the Ronald McDonald House in Bangor since its inception. A former teacher in Machias, Beckwith is now on call 24 hours a day. “The families change from year to year but the stories never change,” Beckwith says. Those stories always include a sick child who needs to be close to Bangor hospitals, and at least one parent who lives too far away to comfortably commute. Some stay for as little as a night; others like the Smith-Pelkeys are there for a month or more. One new mother stayed at the house for six months until her premature baby was healthy enough to take home.

A step inside the Ronald McDonald House kitchen makes its comforting appeal clear. The cupboards in the large kitchen are always stocked with food and there are always baked goods sitting out on the large island in the middle of the kitchen. “A lot of friendships start here,” Beckwith says. Hood donates the orange juice, butter, eggs, and milk to all the houses across the country. For families that don’t have transportation there is a minivan that takes them to and from local hospitals. Two to three nights a week a local group prepares a hot meal for the house. The volunteers make sure to have leftovers waiting for the families who come home after dinner is through.

After being at the hospital all day, families usually decompress in their own rooms. Many venture out into the common rooms once they are refreshed. “The best emotional support comes from other families. That’s the magic of the Ronald McDonald House,” Beckwith says.

The magic goes beyond four walls and a roof. The Ronald McDonald House Extensions Program helps these families with travel, bills, and other emergencies such as car repairs and home heating oil in the winter. Beckwith says the program helps with “whatever it takes to keep the family going and not going under.”

The Extensions Program also offers college scholarships to children who have beaten their illness. And Bangor’s program organizes family outings such as bowling and mini-golf, and holds a weekend retreat every September in Bar Harbor.

Though it’s been years since Elizabeth Smith-Pelkey has been in treatment, the family still goes to the Extensions Program’s annual family retreat, in part to be an inspiration to others, and, in part, to be inspired themselves. But not every story ends as happily as Elizabeth’s. “We’ve also seen kids relapse and pass away,” Smith-Pelkey says.

While the Ronald McDonald House can’t control the young patients’ outcomes directly, they can support these children’s greatest source of strength: their families.