How did the Ronald McDonald House start?
In 1973, Kim Hill, the seven-year-old daughter of Philadelphia Eagles football player Fred Hill, was being treated for leukemia at Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia. Hill and his Eagles teammates became determined to do something to benefit families using Children’s Hospital. They approached Kim’s physician, Dr. Audrey Evans, head Hematologist/Oncologist at Children’s Hospital and indicated their desire to help. Dr. Evans expressed the serious need for a home-away-from-home facility near the hospital and the search for a suitable home began. Ultimately this led to a joint fundraising effort on the part of the Eagles and Philadelphia-area McDonalds’ restaurant owners to support the purchase and renovation of an older home near the Hospital with seven bedrooms, a living room, kitchen, and laundry. The House opened in 1974, and was named the Ronald McDonald House, not just because of McDonald’s fundraising support from restaurants, but for the positive, hopeful and fun-loving feeling th
