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The seventh annual Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central Texas Starlight Affair will return to Bryan-College Station on Saturday with a goal of raising $225,000 to support local families.

The event, which will begin at 7 p.m. at Traditions Club in Bryan, is the signature fundraiser for the regional chapter’s Brazos Valley programs.

“I like to call it a party with a purpose,” Carolyn Schwartz, CEO of Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central Texas, said. “We like to have fun, and our guests know that they’re there for a really important reason, and that’s to lift families up during these difficult times.”

Tennille Smith, whose family will be spotlighted during Saturday’s event, said she and her family used the Ronald McDonald family room at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Bryan for a total of eight weeks after her son Collin, 19, sustained a brain injury in January 2021. She said he was walking back to his truck with a friend after night fishing when he was struck in the head by a muffler that was sticking out five feet from the bed of an oncoming truck.

Smith said the Ronald McDonald family room was a “home away from home” where she and her husband could take showers and take turns sleeping or helping their other two children with homework while never having to leave the hospital.

“We were able to be with Collin, and that was what was important at that time,” she said. “And then our other two kids were able to come up, and we can have dinner with them in the Ronald McDonald room or I could go up and take a shower while [her husband, Troy] stayed with Collin. It was some of those just simple life luxuries that you don’t think about.”

The entire time, she said, it did not feel like they were in a hospital and they were more comfortable than in a hotel room where they would have to be separated from their son.

“One of us always stayed in Collin’s room with him, but then the other could stay in the Ronald McDonald room, and we would switch out,” she said. “It was just that peace and that comfort that, you know, you had a place to go to.”

Smith said it is humbling for her family to be selected as a representative of the Starlight Affair fundraiser and is honored to be a part of it after the family’s “horrible” time.

Schwartz called it an honor to support families, saying the nonprofits expanded its services to the Brazos Valley in 2015.

“I like to say we kind of bring a hug around the families when they’re going through difficult times,” she said. “Our purpose is to provide the basic needs that a family may need, whether it’s lodging, food or support, so that their energy and mindset can be focused on the child and helping with whatever the child needs and hearing what the doctors say. We take that financial burden away from the families.”

For Ronald McDonald House Charities, she said, a child is considered anyone 21 or younger.

In Bryan and College Station, the Central Texas chapter of the national nonprofit operates family rooms at the St. Joseph Health locations in Bryan and College Station, runs “Happy Wheels” carts at St. Joseph’s and Baylor Scott and White hospitals and helps grieving families through bereavement services.

The Happy Wheels cart, Schwartz said, is a hospitality cart that includes items from games and toiletries for kids and adults. The bereavement services are offered to families who have lost a child and include burial assistance, a virtual support group and a memory garden where rocks are engraved with children’s names.

The family rooms are like apartments within the hospitals, where the family of a baby in neonatal care or of a college student can stay while their child receives the care he or she needs.

Even if a child’s family is local, as was the case with the Smiths, Schwartz said, a family being in College Station while their child is at a hospital in Bryan is too far.

As the parent of a chronically ill child, she said, she and her husband would do anything to make sure their son had whatever he needed.

“We didn’t eat. We took turns staying up in the night to check him during the night. You as a parent just want to focus 100% on your kid and you stop thinking about yourself,” she said. “And so Ronald McDonald House comes around the family, whether it’s the parents, the grandparents or the siblings, to say, ‘We’re going to bring some normalcy for you.’”

That means helping provide warm meals, a place to sleep and shower and other “simple” needs.

Smith said people tend to not want to take something from others when help is offered, but she encouraged people who are offered help from RMHC or their supporters to accept it.

“Take that blessing because it’s a blessing, and you don’t realize it until you’re in it,” she said.

Smith said before they utilized the family room, she did not realize the services were available locally or for families of people older than 18, so she wants to make sure people know it is available.

After nine brain surgeries and outpatient rehab since late June 2021, Smith said her son proved wrong those people who did not expect him to survive. This week he began pushing a manual wheelchair.

“He’s our little miracle boy,” she said.

While the Smiths’ story will be highlighted during the Starlight Affair, Schwartz said, they are not the only ones who have directly benefitted or known someone who has benefitted from RMHC. In addition to the Smiths’ story, the Starlight Affair event will include snacks prepared by local chefs, signature cocktails, wine toss and cigar rolling activities, a live and silent auction, photos with Reveille and live music.

Tickets are available, and people can participate in the silent auction online until noon Sunday. People also can support the nonprofit by donating online, purchasing items off the chapter’s wish list or volunteering to help in the family rooms or to push the Happy Wheels cart.

For more information about the event, purchase tickets or participate in the silent auction, go to rmhc-ctx.org/events/starlight-affair.

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