100% WELSH SLATE
RONALD McDONALD HOUSE PLAQUES
All of us here at Stone Sign Company were honoured to donate custom room plaques to the Ronald McDonald House Charity.
A wonderful charity that operates across the UK, the Ronald McDonald House Charity provides a ‘home away from home’ for families with children in hospital. With 11 Houses across the UK, the charity works to ensure that all families have a place to eat, sleep and wash that is just moments away from their child’s ward.
The House in Cardiff opened in 2017 and is located next to Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospital. It features 30 en-suite bedrooms for families of children being treated at the hospital, and also includes communal kitchen and living spaces. It provided much-needed comfort to 554 families in 2019.
As an independent charity, Ronald McDonald House rely on the financial support from local communities, corporates and individuals. When a fundraiser totals over £5000, the fundraiser is presented with a commemorative plaque displayed outside a room of their choice for the next 1-3 years. We were contacted by Ronald McDonald House, who proposed the idea of creating five stone plaques that would commemorate the sponsored rooms.
Due to the space in which they were being fitted, we decided that Welsh Slate would be the best option. We decided to use thin 5mm Welsh Slate with a hand-chipped rustic edge, which produced a stunning end result. Each sign was intricately hand-finished and painted in-house by our expert artisan painter.
Each plaque marks a different room and gives thanks to the person or people who sponsor that room. The first plaque is sponsored by Otis Bowie Earls, a young boy whose family spent 115 days at the House when he was born prematurely at just 26 weeks. His family raised money through a charity ball held in 2019 and now sponsor the ‘Pen Y Fan’ room that they originally stayed in. His plaque features a hand-painted image of Otis, expertly created by our skilled painter.
Another plaque was crafted to honour a sponsorship by Oisin, who cycled 26km a day for 26 days in memory of his cousin Josh. Josh spent a lot of time in Crumlin Hospital in Dublin before he passed away in 2019, and his family stayed in the nearby Ronald McDonald house. Oisin raised over £6000 for the charity, and now sponsors a room for families like his own.
Other plaques have been crafted to mark sponsorship by the Forte School of Music, Seda International Packaging Group and McDonalds Store 1024 in Tonypandy.
We are incredibly pleased with how the plaques turned out, and are so happy to have been able to support such a fantastic charity. Please contact us today for any house stone sign or business sign requirements you may have.