Help the Kiwanis Family House Help Families

Last year, I joined the Board of the Kiwanis Family House, located in Sacramento. We’re strategically near UC Davis Medical Center and Shriners Hospital. I want to share with you about what we do, why I’m involved and how you can help.  

These facilities provide complex and specialized emergency medical care to thousands of children and adults each year. These families are forced to drop everything to travel long distances and hope that their loved ones will recover, and their lives will eventually return to some sense of normalcy. 

 It’s easy for our families to burn out on caring for very sick children or spouses by staying at the hospital, in their car, or even a motel. They’re in highly stressful situations, unfamiliar settings and facing unexpected life-saving decisions about loved ones.   

You probably can tell from the name that Kiwanis Family House (KFH) is a temporary home-away-from-home. Low-cost lodging is critical to our families because the illness may be prolonged and the injury completely unexpected. Over 40% of families in California can’t support a $400 surprise expense, and that’s true for over 90% of our families. 

Our House is a home, maybe much like your own, with all the basics, including laundry, kitchen, and private bedrooms. We offer complimentary, RV hook-ups, spiritual counseling and shuttle bus to the hospitals.   

Families are rigorously vetted out by a strong referral network, and each family is asked for a daily contribution of $50. Even when families can afford this modest gift, it only covers 24% of the total cost.   

But more than a list of services we provide, KFH creates community for families.   

When families come to KFH, they quickly build a network. They’re surrounded by other families going through the same challenges they are. They come together to offer hope to each other. When caregivers take care of themselves, they are better support to their sick or hurt loved ones.   

The KFH model works! The children and adults receiving emergency and complicated care of our families are healing faster.  

Families already make difficult decisions about health care for loved ones. Being able to have a roof over their heads when complex care is needed far from home shouldn’t have to be one.   

I hope you’re asking yourself how you can be part of the healing. You can!  

I hope you will give on May 2. My goal is to raise $500 from 10 of my friends. That’s just $50. 

Let me break this down a little bit for you:

• $50 covers a family’s stay for one night
• $35 covers guest soap for a month
• $25 can cover the purchase of bleach for a month
• $25 will cover the cost of a box or two of snacks made available to the families

I hope you can join the KFH Family. You will make a difference.   Thank you for helping a family heal tonight. 

-Kristine Gibson

Board Member of Kiwanis Family House