Ronald McDonald House has helped NW families for 39 years. Now it's the community's turn to give back.

COVID-19 wrought chaos and financial instability across the world, and three years later its lingering effects are still having a damning impact on the business world.

Local nonprofits such as Ronald McDonald House Charities of Northwest Florida, however, are feeling the pinch in an entirely different way as they struggle to see a return to pre-COVID volunteering, a necessity to run their organization efficiently.

“It’s almost like having to reset,” said Summer Jimmerson, president of Ronald McDonald House Charities of Northwest Florida. “People know the name, they associate it with things that are good, and they know that we are a good children's charity… What I do not think they know is exactly what we do or how.”

The Pensacola house opened in 1984 following the efforts of local Pensacola residents such as Dr. Reed Bell and Dr. Jerry Maygarden to build a “home-away-from-home” in the community.

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Serving approximately 1,200 families annually with 29 bedrooms and communal spaces across two buildings, RMHC aims to ensure that families are provided comfort and security as their child undergoes medical care in nearby hospitals. According to staff, “nothing else should matter when a family is focused on healing their child.”

They provide food, rooms and other care for families on a daily basis and operate similarly to a hotel, but for free. Families come from throughout Florida and neighboring states, with the majority living in Walton, Okaloosa and Bay counties.

In their 39 years of local operations, the house and its employees held true to the motto of selflessness, serving nearly 30,000 families and providing them with a space to mitigate the chaos brought into their lives by medical tragedies.

It truly takes a village − and huge fundraising efforts − to keep the lights on and programs running each year.

“I think what most people don’t know is that we start the year at $0 and have to raise at least $1.2 million each year to make sure our families are taken care of,” Jimmerson said. “Everything in here from top to bottom is donated. This community definitely comes together to help each other, we’re living proof of that.”

As important as the financial support is the thousands of volunteer hours that go into the house and nearby family wing at Studer Family Children's Hospital at Ascension Sacred Heart.

“We have lots of different volunteering opportunities available," said RMHC Volunteer Manager Krystal Howell. "We have house volunteers, laundry volunteers, food and leftover volunteers and more. It takes a lot of volunteers to run a house this size.”

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Due to the safety and scheduling uncertainty created by the pandemic, maintaining connections and consistency with volunteers has been a challenge. In particular, meal preparation has been hit hard. For years, small groups of volunteers, oftentimes family members, church groups, co-workers or friend groups, have taken turns cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner in the RMHC community kitchen.

Meal preparation and other volunteering was paused during COVID and when staff got the OK to resume, volunteers were slow to return.

Howell and other staff are working hard to get them back, but they are also on the lookout for potential new volunteers who want to get involved.

“We love everyone, we’re super inclusive, it’s a fantastic place to be,” Howell said. “We do a survey for volunteers about every three months to see how we can improve, and they always come back fantastic.”

Howell noted that training and shadowing is provided to all prospective volunteers.

“It’s run very well, but we can never say no to [prospective] volunteers. We need as many as possible,” she said.

In addition to volunteers, the house also runs on donations.

Jimmerson explained that every single item in the building, whether it be the comforting Tempurpedic mattresses or the "magic closet" full of toys available for the children, is a result of donations on behalf of individuals and organizations. Tempurpedic, for instance, has an agreement with Ronald McDonald houses to donate mattresses free of charge to the houses in need of them.

The Northwest Florida RMHC has multiple avenues for donations, as well as opportunities for donors to leaving their personal mark on the site through name memorialization. Each part of the building contains frames, names or pictures of either donors or the families supported through their selflessness.

Want to help Ronald McDonald House Charities of Northwest Florida?

• To donate, visit their website at https://rmhc-nwfl.org/how-you-can-help/way-to-donate.

• To volunteer, visit rmhc-nwfl.org/get-involved.

• To take part in their annual fundraiser “Firecracker 5k” on July , visit rmhc-nwfl.org/events/firecracker-5k.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Ronald McDonald House Charities of Northwest Florida needs volunteers