It is with sincere appreciation that the RMHC of Tulsa thanks The Grace and Franklin Bernsen Foundation. The Foundation recently provided financial support to the RMHC of Tulsa that removed a significant burden for families who travel to the Tulsa area to receive medical treatment for their sick or injured child.The Ronald McDonald House of Tulsa is a fully-functioning house encompassing 24 bedrooms with private bathrooms. We use aluminum foil, toilet paper, milk, and laundry detergent just like in a normal home. Laundry piles up just like it does in a normal home, too! Providing access to free and convenient washers and dryers is just one of a “laundry list” of benefits that the House offers to the families who stay with us.
Many of our families show up with the clothes on their backs, or they show up not knowing how long they will need to stay. Having access to 3 residential-grade washers and 3 residential-grade dryers is a blessing to these families and helps “wash away” a little bit of their stress during their stay. However, prior to the Foundation’s gift, a single laundry room served the families’ laundry needs as well as the House’s operational laundry needs, such as washing comforters, linens, and bath towels (and, as done at a hotel, these items are washed frequently). Giving families priority to the laundry machines often caused House laundry to pile up, which in turn impacted the ability to move the next family into an otherwise available room but for clean room linens. Additionally, the heavier House loads “drained” the residential-grade machines, frequently leading to repairing the machines or purchasing replacement machines. The Grace and Franklin Bernsen Foundation provided a solution to this “hampering” problem by bestowing a grant to re-plumb and transform a closet into a commercial-grade laundry room dedicated solely to the House’s operational needs, thus allowing the original laundry room to operate exclusively for families’ needs.
We are grateful to The Grace and Franklin Bernsen Foundation for graciously contributing to this renovation project; the Foundation’s grant is making a difference for our families and is assisting the RMHC of Tulsa in serving these families! We have turned the “Tide” and are “wringing” in a new era where families no longer have to wait for the residential machines to become available, and the House’s loads are laundered as needed and without disruption so we can keep families off the waiting lists by making rooms available sooner. Because of our community’s caring and generous people and organizations, like The Grace and Franklin Bernsen Foundation, we can keep families close!
