Area Ronald McDonald Houses to benfit from McDonald's Shamrock Shakes
KSN/KODE—For every McDonald's Shamrock Shake sold until March 23, money will be donated to Ronald McDonald Houses nationwide.
Locally, the Ronald McDonald House of the Four States will also benefit from those who indulge in Shamrock Shakes.
The Ronald McDonald House of the Four States is a 'home away from home' for the families of seriously ill children and ill expectant mothers being treated at Freeman Health System and Mercy Hospital Joplin. It is located at 3402 South Jackson in Joplin.
The goal is to raise $5 million nationally, which could provide 50,000 overnight stays for families staying at Ronald McDonald Houses.
The Ronald McDonald House of the Four States opened on July 27, 1998, and has served hundreds of families in the Four States area. A common misconception is that a Ronald McDonald House is owned or in some way funded by the McDonald Corporation. Each Ronald McDonald House is locally owned and operated.
This Shamrock Season honors the fundraiser that helped open the first Ronald McDonald House over 50 years ago.
'We love knowing that local proceeds from our delicious, minty treat will help to support local Ronald McDonald Houses in keeping families together,' says Alex Maffei, second-generation McDonald's franchisee. 'A core value for us at McDonald's is Family. Together, with our crew, customers, and iconic McDonaldland character, Uncle O'Grimacey, we're all helping Ronald McDonald Houses make families feel at home, even when they can't be.'
Ronald McDonald House of the Four States is part of the only worldwide service of its kind. The first Ronald McDonald House opened in Philadelphia in 1974. Fred and Fran Hill's daughter Kim was undergoing treatment for leukemia. During Kim's three years of treatment, the Hills grew tired of sleeping in the hospital waiting room and eating meals out of vending machines. Fred, a player for the Philadelphia Eagles at the time, rallied the support of his teammates and General Manager Jim Murray; Dr. Audrey Evans from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia; and local McDonald's franchisees to create Ronald McDonald House. More than 50 years later, there are more than 377 Ronald McDonald Houses in 45 countries and regions, and McDonald's franchisees and its customers have donated over $1 billion to Ronald McDonald Houses.
HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO STAY THERE?
Families are asked to contribute $10 per night. If that is not possible, their stay is sponsored.
.
This 24-hour, 365-day-a-year program is operated by one full-time program manager, one part-time program coordinator, and 136 active adult and teen volunteers, as well as 16 junior volunteers and 16 special project volunteers.
The House Manager oversees the day-to-day operation.
Volunteers help with all aspects of the House, including housekeeping, providing support and services to families, performing night manager duties, preparing meals, and fundraising.
All monies needed to operate the program are derived through individual and/or corporate donations. Ronald McDonald House is a tax-exempt, nonprofit organization established as a 501c3. Donations are tax-deductible.
Monthly operating costs average $26,900 per month.
Click here for other ways to donate or get involved.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Illustration by Allure; Source images: Getty Images, Adobe Stock You will forgive me if the number of times I've uttered, 'Geezus Christ,' in the past few days has hit some kind of record. I was asked to write something about Kris Jenner's new face (you have presumably seen at least some of the flood of photos and online conversations that have saturated news and social media feeds since its debut a couple of weeks ago). I've consequently spent what now feels like half my life peering at many of those photos and drowning in mostly vacuous content about what appears to be her vastly changed appearance. I say 'appears to be' because there's really no way of knowing what Kris Jenner actually looks like. Which is one of the reasons for my incessant muttering. I've examined so many photos of the Kardashians/Jenners at this point that I can't even tell them apart. (Not that I was an expert at that even before this week.) The resemblance between Kris and Kim—I think it's Kim—after Kris's most recent facial renovation is similar enough that in photos they look like AI sisters, if not twins. Yet there's a 25-year age difference between them; one of them has birthed six children, is a grandmother of 13, and is only five years younger than I am at the cusp of 75. But in photos, the Kris/Kim's look basically the same age. Geezus Christ. I want to make it clear from the start that I don't judge anyone for their aesthetic choices, my attitude being: It's tough enough trying to reconcile the fact that, as mortals, we could vanish at any moment, so: Whatever gets you through the night. If that requires an all-out effort to diminish the manifestations of your gradual physical deterioration, bless you—go for it. The problem for me isn't, then, choosing to have plastic surgery. The problem is the way the results of that choice are represented in our news and social media feeds. Bottom-line, we're fed a steady diet of… junk food. Prime example: I just watched a plastic surgeon detail on his million-plus follower YouTube channel each step as he determined them, year by year, of Kris's facial evolution. But the photos he used to demonstrate the work she had done were obviously heavily filtered or otherwise edited. So, though he may have extensive experience with facial anatomy, without access to Kris's actual face, he was basically spinning a tale. At the end of the story, an estimated cost of the proposed work pops up: Not the kind of elective surgery money you or I will likely ever enjoy. But—this surgeon points out—you can afford the skin care he's selling, at a much more reasonable price. Small consolation for the sad fact that we can't afford the procedures Kris may or may not have had to make her look like—well, I have no idea what she actually looks like. And neither do you. Geezus Christ. I did find a 2022 video of Kris without makeup, promoting Kim's SKKN skin-care line. Barefaced, she looks very different, nicely preserved, like any well-cared-for civilian you might run into shopping for skin care at your local Walgreen's (you can only buy SKKN online… but you get my gist). According to many accounts, including some of her own, Kris had submitted to, by then, more than one facelift, a panoply of in-office treatments including neurotoxin, microneedling, and whatever else you might think of—or might not even think of, like an earlobe reduction—but her face still looks appropriately, pleasantly, if not excessively lived-in. Her glow, she claims, is due to the seven-step before-bed skin-care routine she has just demonstrated. Geezus Christ. I have no idea what she actually looks like. And neither do you. In the May 2025 version of Kris, she's presenting with a generally smaller face, a more tapered chin, softly oval face shape, and an emphasized jawline. Her new hairstyle, with bangs and a bow, is kittenish. In fact, the whole impression bears a remarkable resemblance to a classic anime girl, a look achieved not only with a facelift and other procedures, but maybe with weight loss, and definitely with elaborately and skillfully applied makeup, a more youthful hairstyle, and on most of these photos: digital filters. (While the Internet has been awash in images of Kris Jenner, I could find only two that were captured in the wild and not coming to us from her owned-and-operated social feed.) This iteration, in its freakish youthfulness and unnatural perfection is what finally shifted my Geezus Christ into the more secular Holy sh*t. Not because of the magic performed by a plastic surgeon, a makeup artist, a hairstylist, and the filters. It's because this artificial representation is being welcomed not only as if it were real, but as if it were achievable—and even desired—through aesthetic procedures. Some of the recent headlines include Kris Jenner's New Look Stuns Fans, Kris Jenner's Glow-up Sparks Positive Reactions, and from this very outlet, Kris Jenner's New Face Is a Great Case for Keeping Plastic Surgery Old School (although this did stand apart as a reported story on the surgical specifics of the type of facelift Jenner's surgeon is known to perform). I can't really say what beauty is. But I can say what it is not. It is not this, this 'sanitized digital simulacra of selfhood that appears online,' as Sophie Gilbert elegantly put it recently in The Atlantic. Nobody looks like Kris. Not even Kris. The detriments to our mental health of what Gilbert calls the 'subtle psychic violence' of the desire resulting from exposure to these simulacra are well-documented. Is there any hope for a more reasonable, healthier, more human and reality-based approach to beauty? The facial plastic surgeon Steven Dayan has proposed a model, as reported in the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology, called the 'Special Theory of Relativity for Attractiveness.' An editorial published in the Journal of Aesthetic and Clinical Dermatology distills it this way: Dayan suggests that 'the pursuit of physical beauty alone is not enough, that… people also desire to appear genuine and feel confident. In other words, attractiveness is a multidimensional concept comprising beauty, genuineness, and self-esteem, with 'naturalness' being an interpretation of the optimal balance of these factors. It is a reminder that beauty, like time, is a relative concept, shaped by individual perspectives and cultural contexts.' Holy sh*t. What a divine idea! 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