Our Family Room

The Ronald McDonald Family Room began welcoming guests in 2009 inside the walls of Kentucky Children’s Hospital in Lexington, KY.  The Family Room provides a comforting and quiet area of respite, relaxation and reflection for families and loved ones of children who are being treated in the critical care units (NICU, PICU) of the hospital.

The Ronald McDonald Family Room, open from 9 a.m to 9 p.m, seven days a week, is staffed with helpful specially trained and screened volunteers.  Guests of the Family Room will find comfortable seating areas, complimentary snacks, McDonald’s® coffee, books and magazines as well as the use of portable electronic devices (DVD and CD players) with a library of family-friendly media. For the siblings, toys, crayons/coloring books, and games are also available.Families of children facing life and death circumstances are often hesitant to leave the hospital even for one minute and the Family Room provides a few moments of escape throughout the day away from the stress of their situation.

In 2022, the Family Room:

♥ served 1,052 families
♥ distributed 939 Lunches with Love
♥ created another Local Program in conjunction with Kentucky Children’s Hospital Operations Team to support PICU sleep rooms with welcome bags & new Tempur-Pedic mattresses
♥ served the DanceBlue Clinic, Pediatric Specialty Clinic, and two overflow units through our Happy Wheels Care Carts

The Ronald McDonald Family Room program at Kentucky Children’s Hospital is made possible through leadership support from McDonald’s of Southeastern and Central Kentucky and UK HealthCare as well as individuals, companies, and organizations who provide in-kind and financial contributions.