The Founder’s Week committee board has agreed to sponsor the Ronald McDonald House (RMH) of Norfolk for Founder’s Week 2025.
“It is important [to] look for ways that we can help other people,” committee board member Kimberly Bedinger said.
The RMH helps support families by providing them medical care and resources they may need such as food, clothing and blankets.
With this year’s Founder’s Week theme being “Honoring our past, Creating our future,” the committee board encourages every class and organization to be creative and give back in some way. This can include volunteering at the house, making cards or providing them with certain items on the RMH’s wishlist, which was distributed to classes and can be found on the RMH website.
Founder’s Week Projects can be turned in digitally to administrator Carrie Gantt or physically to English teacher Kimberly Bedinger in Room 142.
“Kids can make cards, take pictures and, hopefully, the independent living and culinary classes can help make stuffed animals and cookies,” Bedinger said.
The board has arranged a night for staff members to help serve dinner at the RMH on March 17, 2025, which 10 staff members have signed up for. The team will host a taco bar while also serving brownies.
“We have several staff members whose families have benefited from RMH in the past while a loved one was receiving treatment at a nearby medical facility,” Gantt said.
Student Council is one organization in the school that has set plans to volunteer in-person at the house.
“We’ll be serving breakfast probably around April on a weekend,” junior and executive board member Robinson Chen said.
Elyse Brown, the executive director for the RMH of Norfolk, came to Ocean Lakes as a representative speaker on their behalf on March 3, 2025.
“In honoring an organization that has been so vital in the lives of our own Dolphin family, we no doubt look to the future with gratitude for the RMH,” Gantt said.
