Ronald McDonald House to close

Families choose hospital over Lauderdale center

The Ronald McDonald House in Fort Lauderdale will close after 13 years at the end of January; its last guests are an energetic 6-year-old girl and her mother.

The nonprofit 16-room house, located near the Salah Foundation Children’s Hospital, is a temporary home where ill children and their families can stay for free or at minimal cost as they await treatment. It is closing because the number of guests has declined sharply in recent years.

“It’s a very difficult situation, very difficult,” said Flora Nwalupue, her voice cracking and tears welling in her eyes.

She has managed the house at 15 SE 15th Ave. for 11 years and has fostered friendships with many of the approximately 2,000 guests who have stayed there. The facility used to bustle with activity — kids in the play room or the computer lab; parents cooking lunch in the spacious kitchen or folding clothes in the common laundry.

But now, the only occupants are Synaii Thomas and her mother, Shurmar Thomas, who live in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. Synaii, who has undergone numerous surgeries for facial deformities, has stayed at the house twice before.

Families who used to stay here are instead opting for rooms at the hospital

after its new pediatric center opened in March 2017. The staff of the Ronald McDonald house concede that the 22 pediatric rooms at the hospital offer more convenience for the families, allowing them to interact with the hospital staff in privacy.

But even before the center opened, the number of Ronald McDonald visitors has declined annually. There were 251 guests in 2009, but last year there were 127.

At the same time, the Ronald McDonald House near Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital is typically at capacity.

It is the organization’s only remaining site in South Florida although there are 12 other houses throughout the state, including three in Orlando. Ronald McDonald Houses operate through donations.

“We’re going to miss this place … Everybody became kinda like family … It’s sad, very sad they decided to close,” Shurmar Thomas said.

CARLINE JEAN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Synaii Thomas, 6, from the Virgin Islands, walks past the entrance at the Ronald McDonald House in Fort Lauderdale. She and her mom are the last family to stay there.

CARLINE JEAN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER “We’re going to miss this place. Everybody became kinda like family. It’s sad, very sad they decided to close,” said Shurmar Thomas, mother of Synaii Thomas.