KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) – Ten years ago, Jules and Javon McBride were in a head-on collision. Jules was 25 weeks pregnant. Both were critically injured. Twelve hours after the crash, their daughter Juliana was born — and spent the next 105 days fighting in the NICU.
Three days after the accident, a hospital social worker told the McBrides about Ronald McDonald House. Jules was still recovering from an emergency C-section. Javon was hospitalized on a different floor. The family had no idea how they would manage.
“I felt sheer joy — that’s the only way to describe it,” Jules said. “I knew that we would be okay.”
The house gave the family a place to stay just minutes from the hospital — at no cost. It also meant Jules’s mother and siblings could support them and stay together under one roof.
For 105 days, Ronald McDonald House served as the family’s anchor. Volunteers provided warm meals. Staff offered emotional support. The facility had quiet spaces to decompress and even a piano, which Javon played from his wheelchair.
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The support didn’t stop after those initial, uncertain months. When Juliana faced additional surgeries in the years that followed, the house was there again…