LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Kentucky Gives Day is this week and the Ronald McDonald House is raising funds to provide free meals for families with children in Louisville hospitals.

For Galen Ravenscroft and his wife, their son means everything.

"We didn’t know if he was going to be with us outside of the delivery room or not. The best-case scenario would have been that we, you know maybe got a few minutes with him before they took him away for surgery or worse,” Ravenscroft said. 

Within the first week of his life, Ravenscroft’s son underwent two surgeries. The family stayed for about two months on their first visit to the Ronald McDonald house while their son was receiving medical attention, and are now back for about a month.

“If you're up here long term and you stay at the Ronald McDonald House, you know you've got a place to sleep, and you know you've got a place to eat. Those two things take so much stress off of your mind when you're dealing with a child with an acute or chronic illness,” Ravenscroft said.

The Ronald McDonald House provides free housing and meals for families that have children receiving healthcare in surrounding medical facilities. 

Most days at the Ronald McDonald House in Louisville, groups of volunteers come into the facility to provide home-cooked meals. 

“The fact that we know that we can come here, at least once a day and have something hot and ready and amazing prepared for us by people that care about us, is amazing,” Ravenscroft said.

Unfortunately, it’s not every day the non-profit has volunteers providing meals. The organization is asking the community for donations, to help provide funds to purchase and cook meals for the families during their Kentucky give day event.

“If we didn't have the guarantee of a nice, warm well-prepared meal every night that we were here. I don't know what we would do. Sometimes you just, you know, all you have a bag at the gas station spend $20 on a handful of snacks but here you get a, it's a meal, it's a full meal, you don't leave feeling hungry, And it's, it's one less thing to worry about when your kids sick,” Ravenscroft said. 

The Ronald McDonald House Charities of Kentuckiana in Louisville is accepting donations online. The non-profit hopes to raise around $7,500 by giving day on Tuesday, May 11th.