The Kamloops Family Room. (Image Credit: Brandy Gozda-Sekhon)

By Victor Kaisar

Family Room

Ronald McDonald House Family Room in Kamloops to open on June 13

May 8, 2025 | 4:30 PM

KAMLOOPS — The long-awaited Ronald McDonald House Family Room at Royal Inland Hospital (RIH) in Kamloops will officially open its doors on June 13.

Brandy Gozda-Sekhon, the owner/operator of McDonald’s restaurants in Kamloops and Merritt, says the Kamloops Family Room will allow families to be close to their children while they’re undergoing treatment at RIH.

“Not only does it really help Kamloops, its going to be Chase, Logan Lake, Merritt, Clearwater — all our surrounding communities that come to Kamloops to have their children treated,” she said.

“To be there and to be able to be two steps away to shower, do some work, tend to your other children, maybe take a nap because there’s a bedroom, or have a meal provided for you, it’s priceless.”

Gozda-Sekhon also said she is pleased to see the Kamloops Family Room finally come to fruition. While the facility has been in the works since 2019, it was officially announced in 2020.

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“Terry Lake and my dad, years and years ago, thought this needs to happen,” Gozda-Sekhon said. “Terry, when he was our Minister of Health, did a lot of work behind it, saying, ‘Kamloops needs this’ and I couldn’t be more happy to be able to continue the legacy and the work that they’ve done.”

The Kamloops Family Room will contain sleeping areas, a kitchen, laundry facilities, a play area as well as lounge with TV and Internet access. It’s expected to cost a little over $100,000 to operate each year, with those proceeds coming from donations from events like McHappy Day.

“It’s not the big donations that are going to keep it running — don’t get me wrong, those are great — but the small donations of you coming in and having a coffee or a happy meal with your child, you are making the same donation as someone else and it is going to help another family,” Gozda-Sekhon said.

The Kamloops Family Room is the second such facility in B.C., joining one at Surrey Memorial Hospital.