Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC) has championed the notion of ‘Family-centred care’ all around the world, providing a ‘home away from home’ for families with critically ill children to stick together during the recovery journey whilst being close to children hospitals. As Hong Kong opens its second Ronald McDonald House there is a greater need for donations to support its expanded operations. While people in Hong Kong may have heard of RMHC or have seen its donation boxes inside McDonald’s restaurants, most do not have a clear idea of what RMHC does and why. This emotional short film seeks to deepen the public’s understanding of RMHC’s mission and purpose by telling a real-life story of a family impacted by RMHC. By deepening the public’s understanding of RMHC and pulling their heartstrings, we aim to generate more donations towards RMHC upon the opening of the second house.

Although this film was based on a true story, it is the film’s direction that allows it to draw the emotions felt by different family members into an emotionally impactful film story. The film’s direction deliberately chooses to withhold from showing Rachel (the critically ill elder sister) throughout most of the film and instead presents the story from the younger brother’s perspective, highlighting the emotional toll of the family’s helplessness and the younger brother’s neglect all through the perspective of a child. This is achieved through illustrating childlike ways of thinking amidst adversity, such as how the younger brother thinks he can get his mother to spend more time with him if he was also sick. Furthermore, rigorous casting was also conducted for all the family members in the story, to most effectively showcase the emotional toll caused by this ordeal.

Through our efforts, we sparked a conversation about the importance of family-centered care and achieved RMHC’s most successful donation drive so far, surpassing our target donation amount by a whopping 78% and surpassing our donation baseline by 5 times. The campaign also generated USD $3.2 million in earned media.