Fort St. John families spend hundreds of nights at ‘house of hope’ while children access healthcare in 2025

FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. — BC Children’s Hospital is over 1,200 kilometres from Fort St. John, which makes it hard to keep families together who are travelling with their children to receive urgent medical care in Vancouver.

That’s where the Ronald McDonald House comes in. 

The Ronald McDonald Charity House in Vancouver, which has been operating since 1983, offers a place to stay for families who have travelled farther than 50 kilometres to BC Children’s Hospital. 

The house most frequently serves families from the interior and northern B.C.

New data released on March 16th, 2026 shows that a total of 11 families from Fort St. John spent a combined 447 nights at the house in 2025.

Ronald McDonald House CEO Richard Pass says the program offers more than just a warm bed. 

“While they’re staying at the house too, it’s not just a place to stay,” Pass said. “We have meals for families, music programs, art programs, medical play, massages for the adults.”

Pass says it does whatever it can to ease the hardship many of the families who attend its house are going through.

“The Ronald McDonald House is truly a house of hope,” Pass said. “The programs that we provide are really to provide as much normalcy as possible. 

“The families here do have so much fun while they are here at the house, siblings included.”

Despite already serving over 2,000 families a year, the Ronald McDonald House Charity is in the process of building a second house to hold another 75 families. 

“It’s a $100 million build project,” Pass explained. “We’re wanting to break ground in August and open in 2028 and double the amount of families we can serve.”

In addition to the creation of a new house, it has already opened family rooms in both Prince George and Kamloops, easing travel burdens for families who can’t make it all the way to Vancouver.

Anyone who wishes to support the Ronald McDonald House can do so on the charity’s website.