University of North Carolina Athletics
Tar Heel Lacrosse Players Visit Ronald McDonald House
November 2, 2010 | Men's Lacrosse
Nov. 2, 2010
By Thomas Wood
Junior Attackman
This past Wednesday night, the UNC men's lacrosse team had the opportunity to make the short trip over to the Ronald McDonald House in Chapel Hill. The Ronald McDonald House is wonderful. Its underlying mission is, in so many words, to provide low-cost, temporary housing for families with children who have life threatening illnesses and are receiving specialized treatment at UNC Hospitals. Believe it or not it can be tough to find a full Team community service project. Although we constantly reach out to the community in smaller groups through our work with the UNC Hospitals, 2nd and 7 Foundation, etc., it's a challenge to find something in the area that requires the help of 45 young men all at once. Nevertheless, we found such a project at the Ronald McDonald house.
Half of the team helped fill sand bags (for luminaries) for the Light-a-Luminary Event in December, while the other half tackled yard work. Zander Walters wielding a weed-eater was definitely a site, as was Connor Hunt with a leaf blower. Kidding aside, it's pretty amazing how much can get done (in a very short time) when you put 45 guys to work. In about an hour we filled up hundreds of bags of sand, raked up almost all the leaves around the facility, and helped trim most of the hedges. While we didn't directly interact with the families on this particular trip, Coach (Brian) Holman stressed to us the importance of our time there. Hopefully our work helped lighten the load of the staff at the Ronald McDonald House, and ultimately made their jobs a little bit easier. Just being around such a place is a tremendous reminder of how lucky we are to be healthy, student-athletes at Carolina.
I couldn't help but noticing a very powerful quote on the website, and I'll close with this: "The Ronald McDonald House of Chapel Hill doesn't tell success stories. We don't measure things in happy endings. We tell stories of life in balance, where happiness meets sadness and fear inspires strength. Our stories are about being at home; our guests' stories are about traveling afar. We meet in the middle to help each other along the way." I really enjoyed our time at the Ronald McDonald House and look forward to our return in the near future.
TarHeelBlue.com extends its thanks to junior attackman Thomas Wood for his first-person account of the team's visit to the Ronald McDonald House of Chapel Hill. Thomas is a third-year student from Dallas, Texas who graduated from Richmond's Collegiate School in 2008. He's also blessed to have a great set a parents who instilled their son with the giving spirit he possesses.
