A few weeks ago my team at work did our annual charity day as part of our company’s Corporate Social Responsibility Programme. The charity we chose to support this year was Ronald McDonald House Charities at Crumlin Children’s Hospital. The Cooking for Families initiative sees groups of volunteers cooking meals in the houses where the families of very sick children are staying.
You can sign up online and commit to providing breakfast, lunch or dinner to the families in the house, cooking for about 25 people. We had a lot of outside help with our prep offsite (from our friends in catering) to get our meal on the table, but it was still stressful to get the food out of the pots and pans and into the bain marie and ready to serve on time for the families at 12.30pm. We had to work together to get all the jobs done, a real exercise in teamwork!
Spending a morning seeing the day-to-day life of families whose seriously ill children are in Crumlin really gives you a sense of perspective and you realise what’s important in life.
We all found the whole experience very worthwhile and I’d strongly urge anyone who wants to give some time to charity to get a group of friends together and give a few hours to help people in their time of need in this way. Consider it a girls’ day out, a family get together, do it in memory of someone or in thanks. Know that your help will be appreciated and feel that you are supporting people who need it.
To sign up check out their website here.
Image: RMHC
