Day +132 A Large Donation to the Salt Lake Ronald McDonald House....

Today was a special day for our family. Jerry's company that he has worked for, for over 20+ years usually does some kind of a Sub for Santa or they come up with some kind of another service/donation project that the employees and owners can donate to. While we were still back in Minnesota staying at the RMH there, Jerry's company decided to do their Holiday donation this year to the Salt Lake City Ronald McDonald House. We were thrilled that they would choose something that was so special to our family this year. Until this all happened with Ariauna we had never been to a Ronald McDonald House and never really knew much about them. To say the least, we definitely learned very quickly this year what the program is all about and what an amazing program it is.  Jerry called me from work on Friday to see if I wanted to go with him on Monday to the Ronald McDonald House in SLC to give them the donation from his company. We were excited and felt honored to be able to deliver the stuff. So we packed the kids up this morning and decided to take them with us to do the delivery. To fill you all in on the Salt Lake City, Utah Ronald McDonald House, they had to turn away approximately 566 families last year because they did not have room to sleep more families. They have been planning for years to do an expansion and finally got enough funds to do it. So they are currently in the process of expanding their 19,645 square foot house into a 57,608 square foot house. They currently have 25 guest rooms and after the expansion will have 71 guest rooms. They currently have 4 long term suites for families with an Immune Compromised child and after the expansion they will have 8 long term suites. To see more about their expansion you can visit www.rmhslc.org. They are hoping to get people to donate supplies to get these new guest rooms and suites ready for families to live in. So that is what Jerry's company did, they took the list of supplies and bought a bunch of stuff off of the list. This morning we met Jerry at Costco and watched them (and took pictures of them) loading the pallets of stuff on the bed of the company truck.

And to give you a little bit of a closer up look, here is what they donated.....

Six computer style chairs

30 table lamps

42 Queen blanket/comforters and 12 new DVD's.

We then stopped by Jerry's work and snuck in the front office to let the owners and upper management see Ariauna. We let them all see the truck full of donations, I went and personally thanked the one owner (the other one was not in the office at the time) and told them how grateful we are to them donating this stuff to the RMH and thanked them for all they have done in our families behalf and for working with Jerry so that he could come and see us a few times while we were gone. Then we headed off for the RMH.

We were overwhelmed at how much his company had donated and you should have seen the look on the staff members faces when they came out to see what we had brought. That should definitely put a good start on getting all of the new rooms up and ready to go. They ended up breaking down the pallets and taking things in on carts and by hand. It took numerous trips to get it all in. Here is our family in one of their conference rooms with all of the donated stuff behind us (unfortunately you can not see it all very well).

I wish we could take the credit for all of the donations. Unfortunately, we can not....The company High Tech Quality Manufacturing deserves all the credit for the unbelievable donation. I am so very grateful to them and know I speak on behalf of many other families who have been lucky enough to have the opportunity to stay at one of these wonderful houses how much their donation will truly impact so many families out there who are going through a crisis that no parent should have to go through. Thank you so much High Tech for your generous donation to the Ronald McDonald House in Salt Lake City and thank you so much for all you have done in behalf of our family.