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Dan Rawls Co. Honored for McDonald House Rehab
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The Dan Rawls Company completely renovated and currently maintains the Ronald McDonald House in Greenville, N.C. The home hosted more than 4,000 "family night stays" last year. | Every Christmas after finishing breakfast with his five grandchildren, Dan Rawls spends time serving cake and pie to the critically ill youngsters at the Children’s Hospital of the Greenville Hospital System in South Carolina.
“All you need to do is go to the children’s part of the hospital and see that little child with an IV in her arm — a little, bald child,” said Rawls, president of the Piedmont, S.C.-based Dan Rawls Company. “It breaks your heart.”
Rawls’ annual holiday ritual represents only a fraction of what the home builder has done for seriously ill children and premature babies and their families in the Greenville area. He’s been instrumental in rehabilitating and maintaining Greenville’s Ronald McDonald House, which provides a home away from home for families of the children being treated by Greenville’s three hospital systems.
For its work with the Ronald McDonald House, the Dan Rawls Company received honorable mention in the 2007 Builder Achievement Award for Outstanding Community Service from the National Housing Endowment, which was presented at the International Builder’s Show in Orlando in February.
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Ronald McDonald and Dan Rawls | Rehabilitating the home was no simple task. Volunteers have helped maintain and keep the house together since it was first built 19 years ago. “The house relied on the goodness of our community,” said Bill Sorochak, CEO of the Ronald McDonald House.
But through the years and all the wear — Sorochak estimates that the Ronald McDonald House hosted 4,000 “family night stays” just last year — the volunteer help just wasn’t enough.
So Sorochak went to Rawls for help.
“When Bill Rawls says he’s going to do it, it’s a foregone conclusion that it’s going to get done,” Sorochak said.
“The house was deteriorating,” said Rawls. “The paint was fading. The window seals were rotting.”
Using labor and materials that were largely donated, Rawls renovated the entire house ― inside and out.
Outside, he refaced the siding, installed new windows and a new roof and repainted. He also added two gardens.
Inside, Rawls and his company remodeled the living suites — Greenville’s house is one of the few in the system that provides private living areas with bathrooms, televisions and telephones for its families. He also installed new appliances and added game and play rooms.
Rawls’ generosity did not end when the renovation was finished. He and his company maintain the facility, and he’s been the prime mover behind efforts to double its size ― from serving 12 families a night now to 24 ― as well as to build an adjacent community center that could be converted into rooms for another dozen families.
Yet, even if the capacity of the house were tripled today, Sorochak said that the facility would barely meet demand. The house currently turns away between 35 and 50 families a month, he said.
Without the house, many families would not be able to stay near their sick children. Special rates at area hotels run about $89.
While the house requests a donation of $8 a night, only about 30% of families who stay there are able to pay that nominal fee. Some families are in such dire financial circumstances that they arrive at the house without the money to pay for gas for the trip home, Sorochak said.
Funding a future expansion will take a strong, local grassroots effort.
“A lot of people have the misconception that McDonald’s funds the house,” said Rawls. “They don’t. We’re a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization.”
Sorochak said Rawls knows how to get more bang for the buck. “He’s been able to stretch those dollars to give us things we’ve never had,” he said, adding that, after years of patchwork maintenance, the roof was a dream come true. “Dan is not shy about asking for anything.”
As part of its award, Dan Rawls Company received a $1,000 donation from the endowment, which it gave to the Ronald McDonald House.
Seven other builders were honored with 2007 Builder Achievement Awards for Outstanding Community Service during the presentation at the Builders' Show.
The awards were established through a grant to the endowment by Isaac Heimbinder, chairman of Rockville, Md.-based BuildTopia, a provider of Web-based construction management software for home builders, and his wife, Sheila.
For more information about the awards, e-mail Gwyn Donohue at NAHB, or call her at 800-368-5242 x8447.
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