What We Do

Our Mission

Ronald McDonald House Charities® of San Diego provides a home-away-from-home for children and their families while the child is treated for a serious, often life-threatening illness or injury at San Diego hospitals.

Our Purpose

The Ronald McDonald House® of San Diego is open seven days a week, 365 days a year, in order to provide lodging to family members of sick or injured children. The alternative for these families is usually sleeping in hospital waiting rooms or in their car, or driving long distances home and back. Since 1980, families have relied on our lodging services - first at our former 12-bedroom House on Berger Avenue, and since July 2009, at our new 47-bedroom House. It costs nearly $148 per night to provide a bedroom to a family, which often includes siblings and the sick child. 

We also offer a reprieve during the day for day visitors through our Family Care Center, located within the House. It is open during the day to any family with a child being treated in a local hospital, not just people staying overnight at the Ronald McDonald House.

Studies show that when family members stay close to their ailing child, the child heals better and family members cope better. The Ronald McDonald House is here to take care of families so they can care for their kids. A bed near the hospital, a warm meal, a hot shower and access to laundry facilities, a computer lab, and many other services, can make all the difference to those who sit by their sick child’s bedside day in and day out. Because of our new, larger Ronald McDonald House, we can provide so many more families the comfort and necessities needed to cope, when their lives are turned upside down by their child’s illness or injury. We expect to serve more than 20,000 annually.