Ronald McDonald House Windsor expansion backed by $3M donation

Ronald McDonald House Windsor expansion backed by $3M donation. From right to left: Amber Hunter, Barry Zekelman, Rachel Macaulay, and Matthew Chater. April 29, 2026. (Dustin Coffman/AM800 News)

Windsor’s Ronald McDonald House is expanding.

Ronald McDonald House Southwestern Ontario marked its 10th anniversary in Windsor on Wednesday with a significant donation from The Stephanie and Barry Zekelman Foundation.

The foundation has committed $3 million to support a new Windsor House inside the future Fancsy Family Hospital, nearly doubling the capacity currently offered at Windsor Regional Hospital’s Met Campus and helping families stay close to their sick or injured children.

Ronald McDonald House says dozens of Windsor families are turned away each year due to space limits, including 59 last year.

Barry Zekelman says the donation will support the design and outfitting of Ronald McDonald House Windsor - The Zekelman Centre inside the new hospital so it can be built the right way for families.

“The hospital is giving them the space, but you need a lot of money to build that out properly, whether it’s the rooms, the kitchens, the family living areas, all of those things, and then staff it and run it,” he said.

“This goes a way to do to doing that. It doesn’t do all of it and the other donors are incredible.”

He added that said seeing what families face during a medical crisis is what made supporting Ronald McDonald House an easy decision.

“When you tour this place and you see that the families can be close to to to their babies and be right there, I actually at first said you know wouldn’t you want to be off site to be out of a hospital, they said no absolutely not it’s a game changer to be here,” Zekelman said.

“We want to promote that we know our community needs that we’re in a fortunate position to be able to give back to the community which has given us so much.”

Kelly Heron, Vice President of Women and Children’s Perioperative and Surgical Services at Windsor Regional Hospital, said keeping Ronald McDonald House inside the hospital is critical for families facing some of the most stressful moments of their lives.

“It just means so much to have the ability to stay within the hospital while you’re worried about your child and have folks around you that are there to take care of you and help support you,” said Heron.

Kayla Saad addressed the audience and said her son Alexander was born premature and spent more than two months in the NICU.

She says Ronald McDonald House Windsor made it possible for her and her husband to be there every step of the way.

“The Windsor House is unique because it isn’t just near a hospital, it’s within it,” said Saad.

“For us, those few extra steps made all the difference. It meant I didn’t have to choose between a few hours of sleep and attending a midnight feeding session. It meant we could maximize every second of skin-to-skin contact, which we know was Alexander’s best medicine.”

Since opening in May 2016, Ronald McDonald House Windsor has welcomed more than 1,000 families for long-term stays, hosted over 6,400 day-pass visits, provided more than 15,000 nights of accommodation, and saved families hundreds of thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket costs.