SANDTON – Ronald McDonald House Charities recently held a fundraising gala dinner to raise funds toward the completion of its charity house at the Nelson Mandela Children's Hospital.
RMHC South Africa chairperson, Sphiwe Reggie Skhosana and his wife, Busisiwe, at the fundraising gala dinner.
The Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC) attracted 380 red shoes that stepped their way into the Sandton Convention Centre for the fundraising gala dinner in early September.
The fundraising event, dubbed the Red Shoe Gala for Charity, was meant to raise part of a shortfall of R1.7 million towards the construction of a 27-bedroomed house at the Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital in Parktown.
More than R300 000 was raised on the day, which will go straight towards finishing the building of the first Ronald McDonald House in Africa, located at the still-under-construction Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital.
The house will be a home away from home for families of sick or injured children being treated at the hospital and will provide accommodation and meals. “Families are kept together and can stay close to their sick children, enabling them to participate in important medical decisions around their children undergoing treatment at the hospital,” said the chairperson of the RMHC South Africa, Sphiwe Reggie Skhosana at the fundraiser.
SOME of the red shoes that stepped into the Sandton Convention Centre for the RMHC South Africa gala dinner.
Patients are expected to come from all over Africa and other parts of the world and children will not be denied treatment simply because their parents cannot afford the hospital fees. Because of the long distances some of the children will have to travel for treatment and the burden of lack of resources on the side of the parents, Skhosana said RMHC South Africa saw it appropriate to build the house to ensure the parents were always close to their little ones at all times during treatment.
RMHC currently operates another house at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto, which was not built by them. RMHC was founded more than 41 years ago in Philadelphia, USA and is currently in 63 countries and regions.
As a shortfall of R1.7million is still outstanding; the RMHC South Africa urges its friends and sympathisers to donate generously towards the completion of the house, including those who are interested in volunteering to visit, www.rmhcsouthafrica.org
