We Did It!
Throughout June and July Ronald McDonald House Glasgow had a live Covid-19 appeal on the Aviva Community Fund website. We received amazing donations from over 20 supporters.
A wonderful ‘top-up’ of £1084.50 from Aviva Community Fund directly, took our total up to a magnificent £1,583.31!! Well done to everyone who donated.
Our star individual supporters were Paul Gordon and Sheila Richards – well done. We appreciate that you have a personal connection to the House. Your support is helping future families, who will unfortunately find themselves in a similar situation. On their behalf – thank you so much!
What will the money be used for?
This money will be used to pay for specialist cleaning products to help keep the House Covid-19 free. Our original budget for this was around £2,500 per year. Due to Covid-19 our projected costs are now £5,000 per month until the end of the year! With the uncertainty of not knowing how long this will go on for we urgently need extra support. Our costs have risen without warning. As long as we are open, the cleanliness of the House and the health and safety of our families and staff is vital.
What ‘Covid-19 Cleanliness’ means for us:
Whilst our two family lounges and library are now unavailable, all communal areas including corridors, reception area, landings and stairs require constant anti-bac wipe-downs including rails, skirting boards and door handles. This involves very high turnover of disposable items that we have had to buy in – single use cloths, non-latex gloves, industrial strength cleaning products as well as many more mop heads for washing the solid floor areas.
All laundry is now being washed, using a specialist anti-bac Dettol solution not previously required, at a higher temperature than normal incurring additional energy costs.
Our laundry facilities are now operated on ‘allocation only’ with families having to put their name down for a particular time slot so that there is only one family in the laundry at any time.
There is usually a charge of £3 per use of the laundry for families which we have now removed in order to provide at least one wash per day for everyone. This will also be welcomed particularly by those whose incomes may be severely reduced. However it will reduce money coming into the Charity to help cover laundry costs.
All of these additional measures soon add up. Both in cost and the time spent by staff to keep the House as safe as possible. The Aviva Community Fund appeal has certainly helped and we are very grateful.
