Tag: Ronald McDonald House

Amazon Dunfermline Supports Three Local Charities

Three charities providing support for children and young people across Scotland have received donations totalling £1,500 from the team at Amazon’s fulfilment centre in Dunfermline.

Children’s Liver Disease Foundation, UK Career Academy Foundation and Ronald McDonald House received £500 each following nominations for support from employees at the Amazon fulfilment centre.

Children’s Liver Disease Foundation provides information advising families and helping them to cope with living with liver disease. The charity also run events across the UK to help families and children affected by childhood liver disease connect with each other.

UK Career Academy Foundation encourages young people to realise their potential, regardless of the barriers they face in society.

Ronald McDonald House Glasgow offers a safe space for parents and carers next to the Royal Hospital for Children to allow them to remain close to a child undergoing treatment. 

Speaking on the donations, Jamie Strain, General Manager at Amazon in Dunfermline, said: “We think very highly of the charitable organisations supporting children and their families through hard times, so it’s great to lend a helping hand to Children’s Liver Disease Foundation, UK Career Academy Foundation and Ronald McDonald House Glasgow.

“The work they do for children and families both across Scotland and locally is excellent, and we are pleased to support them with these donations.”

George Fleming, an employee at Amazon in Dunfermline, added: “The three charities we’re supporting put so much time and effort into their causes and it really shows.

“The care my family received at Ronald McDonald House Glasgow was excellent and I’m so pleased we can support the team with this donation.”

Lauren Coffey, from Ronald McDonald House Glasgow, added: “I would like to thank the team at Amazon in Dunfermline for their support with this donation. We aim to support families and children during such difficult times and as a fully self-funded House we couldn’t do it without help from the community.” 

The donations to Children’s Liver Disease Foundation, UK Career Academy Foundation and Ronald McDonald House Glasgow were made as part of Amazon’s programme to support the communities around its operating locations across the UK.

Rare Birds Book Club celebrates World Book Day by partnering with Ronald McDonald House

Monthly book delivery and digital book club gifts books to Ronald McDonald House in Glasgow

Headquartered in Scotland, Rare Birds Book Club has announced a second partnership with Ronald McDonald House in Glasgow, donating over 60 books to celebrate World Book Day and offer a little escape to residents after a tumultuous year.  

Having originally gifted 82 Rare Birds’ favourites back in the summer of 2020, the home of women’s fiction wanted to continue supporting the charity, sharing a further 42 children’s books and 20 adult reads to add to the ever-growing library.

With reading being the top of the list for many during lockdown, Rare Birds was keen to provide something proven to lower stress and boost wellbeing, especially on the most important day of the literary calendar.

Families staying in the House during the last donation inspired this second delivery, having divulged how reading helped them during some of their most difficult times:

I find books really calming, so when I saw a book at my bedside that wee comfort blanket just made me burst into tears. It made me think that these people just knew me and what I needed to help me get through this time in hospital. That wee touch made me feel so welcome and settled me in during an incredibly difficult time.

I’m quite a homebody, I’m not great with change and like the rest of the family was incredibly anxious about the operation our wee boy was facing. We were away from home and all our support like my mum and sister, all during COVID 19 – my anxiety levels were sky high. I read the picture books to the kids when trying to get them to sleep at night or off for a nap and I think it actually helped me more than them! Soothing stories that calmed the kids and helped me be that little bit less anxious.

My routine after leaving my baby in the ward at night was dinner, shower and tucked up in bed with a book. This sense of routine helped me settle and feel more in control of myself even with everything we were facing at hospital, especially during the pandemic.

Ronald McDonald House Glasgow is an independent Scottish charity providing a safe, welcoming and cost-free home-from-home for families of children who are being treated in nearby hospitals, was chosen for the donation of books to offer a moment of respite for those in residence.

31 ensuite bedrooms hosted 504 families in 2019, gifting over 11,000 nights to those in need; families often arrive under emergency circumstances with only the clothes on their backs and can be miles away from their support network.

For more information visit https://rarebirdsbookclub.com/