14th Annual Loma Linda Ronald McDonald House Car Show

Classic cars and their owners gathered together to fund housing for critically ill children and their families at the 14th Annual Loma Linda Ronald McDonald House Car Show. Held in front of the house, “fixer-upper” and masterfully restored cars alike drew in many spectators and thousands of dollars to help fund the Loma Linda home. The Ronald McDonald House provides a residence and more for families who have children at the Loma Linda University Medical Center. The hospital is internationally renowned, especially for its cancer treatment and care for prematurely born babies. That means people travel literally from around the globe to seek treatment in Loma Linda. In fact, the house currently has families from Russia, China and Puerto Rico occupying rooms and is 150 percent occupied. Walking into the building, the first words that meet the eyes read “the house that love built.” The phrase affirms the mission of the Ronald McDonald House: it is very different from a simple hotel, because it provides support for families as they go through unimaginably tough times. Mike Kovack, the Executive Director for the house summed up the tone. “A hotel is a place to stay,” he said. “This is a place to live.” This mentality is seen in every inch of the house. That includes people taking care of themselves sometimes. For example, families do their own laundry. While the house provides detergent and the machines, it is up to the residents to launder their own clothes. Also, meals are only served three to four times a week. That means people are still responsible for cooking for themselves, too. Essentially, the house “provides for [the families] what they left behind.” Kovack explained. They left behind their home, their kitchen and their daily rituals. A mother or father cooks and cleans their own house, so it is important that daily life continues despite being at Ronald McDonald. “It is more than just the kid who is sick,” Kovack commented. The families are suffering, too, and maintaining a semblance of normalcy is important in helping them along. So, the house does what it can to restore these simple tasks back into the families’ schedules. Luckily, and despite leaving their friends behind to go to Loma Linda, the families in the house are not alone. They have one another. While giving a tour of the house, volunteer coordinator Stephanie Shute pointed out that there wasn’t any food allowed in rooms, nor were there any televisions. Policies like this encourage families to converge in the common areas of the house and interact. Shute explained that volunteers and workers cannot fully empathize with the residents in the house, but the families could surely feel one another’s pain. So living together, eating meals together, and spending free time together gives them the perfect chance to lend helping hands. This interaction contributed to David Davis, who was a father staying at the house, to comment that it “feels like a home with a lot of guests.” He described the house as “perfect,” in part because of the excellent support. Someone was always there if he needed to talk. Needless to say, the car show brought even more guests and supporters to the house. Families enjoyed a fun day, and car owners were able to show off their gorgeous, interesting, and sometimes quirky automobiles. The turnout could be typified as a mixture of the car club Corvettes West and a Volkswagen beetle topped with a canoe and pulling a trailer. Both were present at the car show. Corvettes West donated $25,000 to build a room in the house, and has long been a supporter of the house. One of its board members, Eric Goodman, began the car show fourteen years ago! He has been president of the car club as well as having served on its board for nine years. Corvettes West’s presence at the show was very clear, too, considering that many of the parking stalls housed a shiny ’Vette. Among the gorgeous classics sat other gems. As mentioned, one VW Beetle stood out. The car’s owner Robert Boudreau stood proudly next to his car. He recounted that it had caused, to his humor and others’ dismay, “countless rear-ends on the freeway.” People stare. It is only natural, because the tiny Beetle had a full-sized canoe on top of it, and was decorated to be perfectly prepared to go camping by a lake. It could very well do that, too, because the VW is Boudreau’s daily auto. But do not worry, because Boudreau was quick to assure that no one rode in the boat when he traveled down the road. Even so, the doll that was currently sitting in the canoe brought laughs to many people, including some of the families staying at the house. The car show raised about $5,000 for the house. With over 20 rooms that cost more than $100 a night to maintain and plans to expand soon, the house relies on private donors and events like the car show to continue helping families. But the Loma Linda Ronald McDonald house is not going anywhere. It is an anchor for families to connect with each other and continue to lead a happy life, and the 14th Annual car show August 11 continued its mission.