08 Jul KidsCan visits ARMHC

Each summer our House is blessed with a group of teens from KidsCan that come to serve love to our families. Mikaela Sanders and Alyssa Abraham, two teens from KidsCan, shared their experience volunteering and why they do what they do.

“When we were in 5th grade at Trinity School a group of us decided to get together for one week during the summer to volunteer at different organizations around Atlanta. We were a small group of friends and we decided to call ourselves KidsCan! We spent 5 days that first summer volunteering all over the city and had such a great experience that we decided to do it again the following summer. Now five summers later, and as rising high school sophomores, we are still going strong spending a week together every summer working for great non-profits around Atlanta.

Each spring we get together to decide where we want to volunteer. Each year we try to add new organizations to our efforts so that we can continue to learn about different non-profits in Atlanta. But each year we also want to return to some of our favorite organizations. In our five summers together there is only one organization that we have returned every summer: the Atlanta Ronald McDonald House.

Each summer we have signed up for Baker’s Club and have loved making cookies, brownies, cupcakes and rice cereal treats for the residents at both Atlanta Houses. Some of us have always baked at home and others have learned how to bake along the way. It has been really fun to share the joy of baking with each other. But more importantly we have loved sharing our baked goods with the residents at the Atlanta Ronald McDonald Houses. We love talking to residents while we are baking and they stop by to ask what we are doing. And we especially love letting residents ‘sample’ our baked goods as they come out of the oven. It is so rewarding to see a child smile with a warm chocolate chip cookie in hand. We always leave trays of treats out on the counter when we leave and love to think about residents coming back to the kitchen after a long day at the hospital to be greeted by fresh baked treats. This is why we choose to return to Ronald McDonald House every summer. We cannot wait to come back next year!”

To have teens like the KidsCan crew wanting to contribute to our families means more than they’ll ever know. We so are appreciative for all they do, and cannot wait for another summer with KidsCan!