McDonald's restaurants in New Hampshire turn friendly competition into $1 million fundraiser
Customers at 14 McDonald's restaurants in New Hampshire have collectively raised $1 million for Ronald McDonald House charities.
"You know, every bit counts," said Michael Gambino who owns the 14 restaurants. "The 20 cents, the 30 cents, it really adds up and we've had our eyes set on reaching this million dollars."
Customers round up on receipts
The money was raised, in part, by having customers round up on their receipts.
"I'm just so incredibly proud of all of our employees," said Gambino. "I'm so thankful to our customers for their round up dollars. Our company is just extremely passionate about the Ronald McDonald House charities, the mission and really helping families stay close to the hospital."
The nonprofit provides families with a place to stay when their children are undergoing treatment in hospitals.
"6,000 nights of stay"
"Our whole mission is to keep families close while their children are going through critical medical care," said Lauren Hoops-Schmieg, the CEO of . "We don't ask families to pay a single dollar to stay with us. A million dollars provides 6,000 nights of stay. So that makes a huge impact when there's so much stress."
Teamwork and some friendly competition were the keys to this success.
"We looked at this as an opportunity to help families with sick children," said area supervisor Drew Turner. "So the stores got involved and the general managers, who were very competitive, would go out each and every day and every week to see how much money they could actually raise."
"Every little penny helps. This is the first time our chapter has ever had a McDonald's owner operator be able to say, 'Here's a million dollars,'" said Hoops-Schmieg.
Turner said their next plan is to go bigger.
"Hopefully, we'll get more people involved in this and we can take this to an even higher level," he said.
