Our Mission
Ronald McDonald House Charities of Mobile provides a supportive home environment offering care, compassion, and hope to families with seriously ill and injured children being treated at area hospitals.
Our History
The history of Ronald McDonald House nationally and Ronald McDonald House of Mobile are stories of what one motivated, determined person can do. For Ronald McDonald House globally, that person was professional football player Fred Hill of the Philadelphia Eagles, whose daughter had leukemia. After many nights of sleeping in hospital waiting rooms and eating vending machine food, he knew there had to be a better way for families with children in the hospital. He approached the owner of the Philadelphia Eagles, and together they approached McDonald’s to build the first Ronald McDonald House in 1974 in Philadelphia.
Here in Mobile, that person was Gray Zimlich. Gray’s son, Day, had a brain tumor when he was 10 years old and they stayed in the Ronald McDonald House in Boston while he was receiving treatment. On the way home, Day told his mother that Mobile needed a Ronald McDonald House. Gray promised him she would make it happen, and she did. Our House welcomed our first family in February 2000. We had the distinction of being the first new House of the new millennium. Originally, Ronald McDonald House of Mobile could accommodate up to 12 families. Today, after an expansion was completed in May of 2011, RMHC of Mobile House can accommodate up to 38 families of hospitalized children. We have been open 23 years and have served almost 11,000 families.
