dancing for Ronald McDonald House
Amy Gooden with dance partner Tere Barclay
Photo: Erin Wilson Beane Photography
Senior Associate Director of Student Financial Services, Muskingum University
Amy is a native of Zanesville where she lives with her husband Jay and their son Joshua. She graduated from Zanesville High School, and Muskingum University, with a B.S. in Psychology. She also attended Franklin University where she earned a Master’s in Business Administration. She has worked at Muskingum University as a financial aid administrator for over 13 years.
Amy is a member of the Zanesville Daybreak Rotary Club, St. Nicholas Catholic Church, and enjoys volunteering at Bishop Fenwick where her son attends school. She started dance lessons when she was 5 years old from the Vickye Lewis Dance Company and enjoyed 6 years of learning tap and jazz. Being involved in Dancing with the Divas has reinvigorated her love of dance- especially tap!
Her charity is the Ronald McDonald House of Columbus, Ohio which provides a home-away-from-home for families, so they can stay close to their hospitalized children, at little to no cost. Amy and her husband Jay stayed at the Ronald McDonald House while their son was hospitalized in the NICU at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.
Fun fact:
Amy played the starring role of Annie in the 1990 production at Secrest Auditorium. She returned to the stage 25 years later to sing in Zaney Follies.
Ronald McDonald House
Many families travel far from home and spend several weeks or months to get treatment for their seriously ill or injured children – a long time to be away or to divide a family. And, for children facing a serious medical crisis, nothing seems scarier than not having mom and dad close by for love and support. A Ronald McDonald House is that “home-away-from-home” for families so they can stay close by their hospitalized child at little or no cost.
Ronald McDonald Houses are built on the simple idea that nothing else should matter when a family is focused on the health of their child – not where they can afford to stay, where they will get their next meal or where they will lay their head at night to rest. We believe that when a child is hospitalized the love and support of family is as powerful as the strongest medicine prescribed.
Helping a sick child fight their illness takes a big enough emotional toll on a family. Adding a financial strain can make it all almost too much to bear. RMHC can help address those problems, whether they involve housing that’s near a hospitalized child, the expense of staying together in another city, or even getting basic medical and dental care in a vulnerable community. www.rmhc.org
