Award-winning pastry chef Antonio Bachour is hosting a Mother’s Day fundraiser throughout the month of May benefiting the Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC) of South Florida, according to Miami’s Community News. All of the funds raised by Bachour will go towards building a brand new Ronald McDonald House in Miami. As a patient of the Ronald McDonald House himself when he was just fifteen years old, Bachour remembers the comfort and care he and his mother received while going through treatments there and he wants to give back to the charity that gave so much to them.
When Bachour was fifteen years old, he and his mother traveled from Puerto Rico to Philadelphia so that he could receive treatment for pituitary gland cancer. Staying at the Ronald McDonald House made their situation easier because they were constantly surrounded by a “warm and familial environment” as opposed to staying in a lonely hotel. He shared that Ronald McDonald House became their “support system and home-away-from-home” as he recovered from the cancer.
Calling his initiative “Hope Has a New Home,” Bachour wants to help other mothers and children receive the same care he did as a patient of the Ronald McDonald House where he found both hope and a home alongside his mother. The new construction will double the amount of families the charity will be able to serve and be more “accessible, modern and comfortable.” The Executive Director of RMHC of South Florida, Soraya Rivera-Moya, explained that their House is full nearly every night of the year and they always have a wait list. They currently only have the capacity to serve 31 families each night, but with the new construction, they will have a total of 54 rooms to accommodate four guests each along with updated communal areas including a kitchen, dining spaces and recreational rooms.
Ronald McDonald House Charities allows families to focus on healing, relieving much of the anxiety that comes with the circumstances of having a sick child and getting effective treatment. Caring for children all around the world, Ronald McDonald House Charities has hosted 1.4 million overnight stays for families, has 136,000 volunteers, and more than 685 programs in 62 countries.
Donating ten percent of all Petit Gateaux, Bonbons, and Macarons sales from two of his restaurants, Bachour is working hard to help parents and their children find the same comfort he and his mother did while he received cancer treatment. Important to the process of healing is having a comfortable environment surrounded by compassionate and loving people. With the expansion of the Ronald McDonald House in Miami, Bachour is spreading the opportunity to receive such care to more families and children in need.