Western Pa. McDonald’s restaurants donate more than $75K to Ronald McDonald House

It took all of about five minutes for the owners of a McDonald’s in Lower Burrell and other locations to deliver a huge $75,000-plus check to Ronald McDonald House Charities.

McDonald’s restaurants have been raising money throughout the year by dedicating 10 cents from each Minute Maid frozen Slushie and frozen carbonated beverage sold.

“It was a hot year,” noted Art Alamo of Greensburg, the co-owner of 19 McDonald’s restaurants in Western Pennsylvania. He and his son, Matthew, presented the check to the charity Tuesday at the Logans Ferry Road McDonald’s.

Alamo has been a board member of Ronald McDonald Charities for eight years and involved with the nonprofit for 45 years.

The fundraising seems almost effortless for Alamo and other workers because of the more than four decades of the restaurants supporting the Ronald McDonald House in Pittsburgh.

The cause is universal: providing lodging for families with a sick child, newborns to age 21, who are receiving medical treatment.

“We’ll do anything to raise money for the kids,” Alamo said.

And raise they do with a flurry of annual events, including a golf outing dubbed the Big Mac Open. At Ronald McDonald Charities’ local site, there are 74 family units connected to UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh in its Lawrenceville neighborhood.

The money raised will benefit the Ronald McDonald houses in Pittsburgh and Morgantown, as well as a mobile care unit.

In 2021, Pittsburgh’s Ronald McDonald House hosted 13,000 overnight stays for 700 families, according to Eleanor Reigel, executive director of the charity.

“Our role is to take care of the families — making sure they are rested, fed, relaxed and ready for what comes the next day,” she said.

“The support from the restaurants is phenomenal,” Reigel said.

Alamo’s son, Matthew, of Latrobe, a McDonald’s co-owner with his father, said the charity work is so ingrained in his family and the community.

“Somebody knows someone who needed to stay at a Ronald McDonald house,” the younger Alamo said.

Matthew Alamo added the charity work is well known by McDonald’s workers and customers. The company sends some of its workers to the Pittsburgh McDonald House to cook for the families.

“It builds dedication in the restaurant; they see it, they experience the need,” Matthew Alamo said.