RMHC^® Inc. Awards RMHC of Eastern Wisconsin, Inc. With Best Bets Award and $5,000 Grant

RMHC Inc. Celebrates and Honors Nine of its Local Chapters with Distinguished Best Bets Awards at the Culmination of the 2011 RMHC International Conference

Oak Brook, Ill., (August 24, 2011) –On August 12, 2011, Ronald McDonald House Charities^® of Eastern Wisconsin and their Art Therapy Program was recognized with an RMHC Best Bet Award and a $5,000 grant by Ronald McDonald House Charities, Inc. during the organization’s bi-annual Best Bets Gala. The RMHC Best Bet Awards recognize successful and innovative efforts by local Ronald McDonald House Charities Chapters.

This year, RMHC awarded over $70,000 in grants to Chapters that have achieved exceptional results in their local communities. RMHC of Eastern Wisconsin was one of nine Chapters recognized, representing the top three percent of the RMHC system. The gala and awards ceremony was the culmination to the 2011 RMHC International Conference which welcomed 1,000 RMHC staff, volunteers, donors and board members from around the world to Chicago for a week of education and networking.

“The RMHC Best Bet Awards are an outstanding opportunity to recognize and promote best practices within the RMHC system,” said Marty Coyne, president and CEO of RMHC. “We are so proud of the work at local Chapters like RMHC of Eastern Wisconsin. Their Art Therapy Program – created in a unique partnership with Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin - exemplifies the Charity’s focus on innovative, sustainable program development that enhances the mission, reach, and impact of RMHC. Quite simply, this program delivers a positive impact on not only our children’s health and well being but the entire family as well.

The Art Therapy Program aims to enhance the nurturing, compassionate environment of the Ronald McDonald House^® program.   At the Ronald McDonald House of Eastern Wisconsin, a certified art therapist, staffed in partnership with Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, uses the creative process to guide families towards a place of healing, reconciliation and hope in an art room dedicated to helping families examine and cope with the intense feelings surrounding a child’s illness or accident.  As families face the unimaginable, art, expression and hope become a respite.

Additionally, the Chapter encourages families to place their hopes and fears on a “The Wishing Tree” in a garden outside of the House program. After families work together in the art room to write out their hopes and decorate the paper with strings and fabrics, they tie it to the Tree outside. Once on the tree, the wind blows through the branches and carries their hopes into the world so they will be known. Time and weather eventually bring the hope paper to the ground so the garden can absorb it and allow it to grow into something beautiful.

“It’s the network of more than 297 RMHC Chapters and their ability to innovate at the local level, that truly demonstrates this worldwide organization’s ability to provide stability and resources to families during a critical time in their lives when they need to rely on others to help them find strength,” said Coyne. “The Art Therapy Program – Listening to the Language of Art is a point of pride within the RMHC system.”

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