My heart breaks for the families who were under lockdown as rioters broke windows and doors of the Chicago Ronald McDonald House. They are only there because they have a child in intensive care. To deal with that on top of it all? Unimaginable.
From the Washington Times:
The Ronald McDonald House in Chicago was vandalized during looting early Monday morning while families and their sick children huddled inside, the charity said Tuesday.The Ronald McDonald House in the Streeterville neighborhood of the city’s Near North Side provides support for sick children and their families while the child receives medical treatment at nearby Lurie Children’s Hospital.The charity said more than 30 families and their sick children were sleeping inside when the looters, who had taken over downtown, ransacking stores and vandalizing properties, started attacking the building.“[We were] very concerned there was a lot of activity right in front of the house, people making choices that could put them at risk and put our families at risk, so the staff was frightened,” Lisa Mitchell, of Ronald McDonald House Charities, told ABC 7 Chicago.“They are already in a really, really difficult spot,” she said of the families. “Having this kind of additional stress and worry about getting to and from the hospital even though we are five blocks away because of safety concerns is just doubling the strain.”The building was placed on lockdown during the commotion, CBS Chicago reported. Several windows on the front of the building were smashed, and the front door had to be boarded up. No damage was caused to the inside of the house and no one was injured.
Watch:
We have such big love for the Ronald McDonald House. When Baby Walt was hospitalized, the Ronald McDonald house was there for us. They provided encouragement, kindness, and accommodations, allowing us to spend the night on the same floor as our baby. We often opted to head home as we lived close and their rooms were almost always full (we thought it better to leave rooms for out of town parents), but on nights there was availability, we stayed. It was a tremendous comfort to be able to walk down the hall and see our baby at any point in the night instead of being at home with his empty bed.
Attacking a Ronald McDonald House is truly unconscionable.
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