Our new Community Floor.
This space reimagines the second floor of Ronald McDonald House New York with every part designed around what families need.
More recreational spaces.
Expanded programs.
Chef-prepared meals.
Stronger family connections.
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175,000
Uses each year
Visits to the dining and play spaces on the Community Floor.
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29,000+
Night Stays
Families who sleep, eat, and gather here over the course of a year.
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75,000
Meals Served
Three meals a day, every day, for 80 to 130 guests at a time.
The Heart of the House
It’s where families connect, heal, and grow. Caregivers finding honest conversation. Children staying on track with learning. Parents cooking together while little ones play nearby, chefs and volunteers turning meals into care.
Here, families gather for support, drop-in activities, and meals that forge bonds. Young children discover through play. Older kids make music, record podcasts, and create everything from mosaics to slime. Board games, lounging, tinkering. Laughter fills every corner.
A place where a caregiver meets a friend. A child finds their voice. Quiet talks. Shared meals. Moments of joy.
The Community Floor is the soul of our House. A sanctuary for the families we serve today, and the many more we will welcome tomorrow.
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More room to play
A dedicated Hangout Hub and Play Space where childhood keeps going, treatment schedule or not.
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Expanded Programs
Tutoring, music, podcasting, art, and caregiver support, all under one roof and staffed daily.
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Chef Prepared Meals
A new commercial kitchen and a chef-led meal program built around what our families actually eat.
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Stronger Connections
Spaces designed so a parent can cook, work, or rest while their child plays a few steps away.
Ways to Give
Your Heart. Their Home.
On the Community Floor, children play, families share meals, and caregivers find a moment of normalcy during extraordinarily difficult times. Philanthropy is what makes those moments possible.
A gift to the Community Floor helps sustain this gathering place for the thousands of children and caregivers who call Ronald McDonald House New York home.
Name a space
Landmark spaces, dedicated rooms, and sub-zones across the Community Floor offer meaningful opportunities for philanthropic recognition, from the Hangout Hub & Play Space to a single kitchen station. To learn what's still available, email epoznanski@rmh-newyork.org.
Leave your heart in Heart Hall
Add your name to the Heart of the House donor wall, the first thing every family sees when they step onto the floor.
Volunteer a meal
Cook and serve alongside our Head Chef in the Helping Hands Kitchen, as an individual or a corporate group.
The Hearts of Heart Hall
Every heart tells a family: you have a home here. Extraordinary philanthropy is recognized on the Heart of the House donor wall in Heart Hall, where a hand-placed heart carries your name among a community of supporters.
Visionary — large heart
Legacy — medium heart
Champion — small heart
A digital recognition level is also available. For gift levels and what’s still open, contact epoznanski@rmh-newyork.org.
The Spaces
Each space on the Community Floor was designed around a moment families told us mattered: the first step off the elevator, the meal after a hard day, the hour when a child gets to be a child.
Heart Hall
Community Begins Here
Heart Hall is the entryway to the Community Floor, the one space every family, guest, and volunteer walks through. Bright, bustling, and welcoming, it sets the stage for connection from the very first step.
The wall carries a message and a rainbow of hearts, each one placed by someone who helped make this floor possible. With gratitude: every family, every moment, every memory made within this House is supported by a community of generosity.
***The Heart Hall Rendering shown to the left was created for illustrative purposes only. The final Heart Hall installation may differ from the image depicted.
Hangout Hub & Play Space
Childhood doesn’t pause for treatment
The Hangout Hub and Play Space is a warm, welcoming place where joy takes center stage and every child can simply play, create, and connect.
More than a playroom, it’s a space where hospital appointments fade into the background, even if only for a little while. Siblings laugh together. New friendships form through play. Every child, whether in treatment or supporting a loved one, is seen not as a patient but as a kid.
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73rd Street Studio
A music room and a podcast room, where children record, express, and create. The podcast room is the first of its kind in a Ronald McDonald House.
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Creativity Corner
Slime, paint, glue, glitter and googly eyes. A dedicated arts and crafts area to imagine, make, and explore.
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Gaming & Movie Lounge
Consoles, plush seating, and multiple screens for friendly competition and shared movie nights.
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Play Space
Shelves of board games and a table big enough for the whole family. The roll of dice instead of the beep of monitors.
The Dining Room
The table where the day gets set down
Three meals a day, every day. The Dining Room is where families and volunteers come together around food, at tables that feel like home rather than a cafeteria.
It’s divided into three zones, each designed for a different kind of day.
Helping Hands Kitchen
A commercial kitchen, run on volunteer hands
In the newly constructed commercial kitchen, our Head Chef works alongside dedicated volunteers to prepare and serve meals daily. Ronald McDonald House New York guarantees three meals a day to every family. With 95 rooms and 80 to 130 guests per meal, that is no small feat.
The chef-led meal program means better food, more variety, options crafted with our families’ cultures in mind, and far less waste.
Individuals and corporate groups cook and serve alongside our Head Chef here most days of the week. See how to volunteer a meal →
Family Kitchen
For the nights when only home food will do
Not every family wants to be fed. A child who will only eat one thing. A comfort food that isn’t on any menu. A parent who needs, for half an hour, to do the ordinary thing they’d be doing at home.
The Family Kitchen is theirs. Four cooking stations, each with full appliances, full counters, and a view through the passthrough window into the Wonder Loft next door, so a parent at the stove can look up and see their child playing.
The Parents Pantry sits inside it, stocked and free. Cooking a meal here costs a family nothing but the time they wanted to spend anyway.
Kitchen Stations
Four families, four dinners, one room
The Family Kitchen holds four full cooking stations, which means it is never any one family’s turn. Four dinners can come together at once, four sets of hands working a few feet apart.
Each station is a real kitchen rather than a hot plate in a corner: range, oven, sink, and enough counter to actually cook on, so nobody stands waiting on a burner. Staples and spices sit a few steps away in the Pantry, which means a family arriving at nine at night can still make something.
That’s what the fourth station really buys: not capacity, but company. Parents chop, stir, and saute while little ones explore nearby, and the buzz of conversation fills the room. People talk over a shared counter in a way they never do in a waiting room.
Connection Cube
Where the youngest play and the grown-ups exhale
The Connection Cube holds three spaces side by side, so a caregiver can rest, create, or find support while keeping their child in sight.
Little Explorers Room
Our early childhood area. Toddlers crawl, toddle, and play in a world scaled just for them, always within arm's reach of a caregiver.
Activity Hub
Where caregivers scrapbook, paint, and knit together. Hands stay busy and hearts find company.
The Den
Plush seating, calm tones, no schedules. A place to sink in and exhale, still within reach of the community outside the glass.
Give a gift of any size
Every gift helps keep the lights on, the kitchen stocked, and the play space open seven days a week.
Community Floor FAQs
The Community Floor is the newly renovated second floor of Ronald McDonald House New York at 405 East 73rd Street. It brings the House’s shared spaces together on one level: a Dining Room, a chef-led Helping Hands Kitchen, a Family Kitchen, the Hangout Hub and Play Space, the Connection Cube, learning and focus rooms, and Heart Hall.
Every family staying at Ronald McDonald House New York, along with their guests and our volunteers. The floor is staffed daily by our Children & Family Enrichment team.
Yes. Ronald McDonald House New York guarantees three meals a day to every family. Meals are prepared in the Helping Hands Kitchen by our Head Chef and volunteers, and served in the Dining Room. A Grab & Go station keeps prepared meals available around the clock, and families who prefer to cook can use one of four stations in the Family Kitchen.
Heart Hall is the entryway to the Community Floor and the home of the Heart of the House donor wall, a rainbow of hearts recognizing the community whose generosity helps ensure this floor remains vibrant and welcoming for years to come.
Yes. Volunteers cook and serve meals alongside our Head Chef in the Helping Hands Kitchen, and support activities in the Hangout Hub and Play Space. Both individual and corporate group opportunities are available. See current volunteer opportunities.
Yes. Recognition opportunities are available across the floor, from landmark spaces to individual rooms and stations. Email epoznanski@rmh-newyork.org to learn what’s available.
Photography of the Community Floor © Albert Vecerka/Esto. Additional images courtesy of Ronald McDonald House New York.
Still have questions about the Community Floor?
Our team can walk you through the floor, the programs, and the recognition opportunities still available.