Ronald McDonald House CIS 112 Section 6

My Time at the Ronald McDonald House

My Final Reflection

Here's the link to my final video reflection on my experience with the Ronald McDonald House.

My Third Experience with the Ronald McDonald House

Here's the link to my video reflection on my third experience with the Ronald McDonald House!

10-24-15

https://youtu.be/p4_rcIimrB4

Final Reflection

This is a video of me reflecting on my time spent volunteering at the Ronald McDonald House.

Today I watched a TED Talk called The Toxic Baby. It was explaining the issues with all of the chemicals, such as preservatives and air pollution, that pregnant mothers are surrounded by. Many of the chemicals are linked to health problems like birth defects and cancers. These babies don't even get a chance to live before they are fighting for their lives.

This TED Talk closely relates to the Ronald McDonald House. Many of the people staying at the house are families of children with cancers and premature infants. I can’t guarantee how the children’s cancers formed, but some could be linked to different chemicals their mother was exposed to while pregnant. The bigger issue that the Lexington Ronald McDonald House sees is babies born addicted to drugs. Their mothers abuse Cocaine, Heroin, prescriptions, alcohol, and other things while pregnant, and their babies are born addicted. “Crack babies”, as they are often called, are very common here in Kentucky. According to USA Today, there has been a 2400% increase of infants born addicted to drugs in Kentucky since 2000, and the number only keeps rising.

This link shows a video about the effects of Opiate withdrawal on a newborn. This is a sad epidemic that continues to grow, but needs to be stopped.

My Third and Final Visit

This video talks about my final time volunteering at the Ronald McDonald House.

The Pantry

Today was my second time volunteering. I spent pretty much my entire time in the kitchen. My day consisted of going through each individual item in the pantry and refrigerator. I had to mark each item based on when it expired and threw out everything that had already expired. I threw out soooo much food! For a charity that is so efficient with its other donations, the Ronald McDonald House was seriously lacking in the food department. The problem is that when groups come in to cook, they bring their own ingredients, so the food that is already at the house just sits and wastes on the shelf.

After what seemed like forever, I finished going through the food, but then I had to bag up almost 1000 pastries donated by Panera Bread. The good thing is the families enjoy them, so they don’t go to waste.

At the end of my second day volunteering, I had only seen one family eating breakfast, but I didn't get to talk to them. I really thought that I would be spending more time with the families. Maybe next time…