{"id":234927,"date":"2025-09-17T22:59:22","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T22:59:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/234927\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T22:59:22","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T22:59:22","slug":"florida-family-calls-philadelphia-rmhc-their-new-happy-place-while-baby-receives-critical-care-at-chop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/234927\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida family calls Philadelphia RMHC their new happy place while baby receives critical care at CHOP"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Philadelphia Ronald McDonald House, which was the first one to open 51 years ago<\/a>, is hosting dozens of families with children who are hospitalized \u2014 and that includes one very grateful family from Florida.<\/p>\n

There’s always something fun to do at the Philadelphia Ronald McDonald House, whether it’s playing air hockey or building things.<\/p>\n

“This place is massive, and they just have so much for the kids to do, which is amazing. The kids are never bored here,” Jesalyn Snitkoff said.<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s a relief for Snitkoff that two of her children, Charlotte and Brady, can be just kids while her 1-year-old Jordan is hospitalized a couple of blocks away at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

“He has good days and bad days,” Snitkoff said. “For the most part, he’s stable, which sometimes that’s all we can ask.”<\/p>\n

Jordan, who was born prematurely, has Down syndrome and a number of serious health problems, including brain damage, lung disease and a lymphatic disorder, which his mom says “causes him to swell significantly.”<\/p>\n

“It puts pressure on his lungs,” Snitkoff said.<\/p>\n

The family was living in Melbourne, Florida, when Jordan was born, and transferred to a hospital in Orlando that wasn’t equipped to take care of him. The Orlando hospital recommended CHOP to Snitkoff.<\/p>\n

“They knew CHOP had a great lymphatic surgery team here,” Snitkoff said. “They said, ‘We can keep you here, but we can’t do anything for him further.’ So we ended up med-jetted to CHOP Dec. 27.”<\/p>\n

Snitkoff and her husband arrived in Philadelphia with a critically sick baby at CHOP, and the other kids had no place to go until a social worker at CHOP arranged for them to go to the Philly Ronald McDonald House.<\/p>\n

“If it was not for the Ronald McDonald House, I don’t know, I don’t know how we would have done it,” Snitkoff said.<\/p>\n

Snitkoff said everyone at the RMHC in Philadelphia was welcoming, providing meals and schooling for her children.<\/p>\n

“I was pretty blown away,” Snitkoff said.<\/p>\n

Snitkoff says it’s a huge relief to be able to visit the hospital every day and know there’s a place to come home to, where there are dozens of other families also with sick children.<\/p>\n

“We’ve grown to really love the people here,” Snitkoff said.<\/p>\n

She’s filled with gratitude for her home away from home.<\/p>\n

“There’s no words. There’s not. There’s no words,” Snitkoff said. “I don’t know how any of this would be possible [without the Ronald McDonald House].”<\/p>\n

It’s become the family’s new happy place.<\/p>\n

Jordan is no longer in intensive care. He just celebrated his first birthday on Sept. 3 at CHOP.<\/p>\n

Heart in the House highlights the essential support Ronald McDonald House chapters provide to families across the Greater Philadelphia Region, New Jersey, and Delaware. To make a donation, visit\u00a0heartinthehouse.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n

Stephanie Stahl<\/a><\/p>\n

Stephanie Stahl is an Emmy Award-winning health reporter. She can be seen daily on CBS News Philadelphia and Philly57.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Philadelphia Ronald McDonald House, which was the first one to open 51 years ago, is hosting dozens…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":234928,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,1448,2830,1311,75975,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-234927","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-pa","10":"tag-pennsylvania","11":"tag-philadelphia","12":"tag-rmhc-telethon","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115222122606546592","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}