Palo Alto man donates over 100,000 meals to Bay Area families

Andrew and AJ, both 7, and Briella, 8, eat their meals at the Palo Alto Ronald McDonald House. Andrew and AJ, both 7, and Briella, 8, eat their meals at the Palo Alto Ronald McDonald House. Photo: Sara Chupein-Soroka Photo: Sara Chupein-Soroka Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close Palo Alto man donates over 100,000 meals to Bay Area families 1 / 4 Back to Gallery

When children make their way to a Ronald McDonald House, it is always in the midst of a trying time.

Larry Tripplett understands this.

As a former board member of the Palo Alto Ronald McDonald House, he knows about the circumstances that make a family turn up at its doors. Families staying there need a place to stay while their kids pursue medical treatment at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford, typically far from where these families all live.

A former high school principal and later an owner of seven McDonald's locations in the Peninsula, Tripplett said he "saw the opportunity for me to do something good" for the kids.

In addition to the volunteer-cooked meals made at the house nightly, Tripplett said he had the idea over 15 years ago to provide meals from his restaurants as a pick-me-up for the kids. Families would order their meals and Tripplett's restaurants would deliver the food each Friday to the families, and it has continued as a weekly tradition ever since.

"Anything you can do to build up the morale, is great," Tripplett said by phone to SFGATE. "We're not trying to push McDonald's food — what we're trying to do is make the Ronald McDonald House a more comfortable place for people to be at one of the worst times in their lives."

"It's just something to make the house more of a home," he later added.

The Palo Alto location of the Ronald McDonald House has changed over the years, first starting as a 13-room house in 1979 to 123 rooms today, and Tripplett's work with the charity was honored at Friday's dinner. By the company's estimate, Tripplett has served over 100,000 meals to families over the years, totaling to about $500,000, and Annette Eros, chief executive officer of Ronald McDonald House Charities Bay Area, said that he hasn't blinked at the number of families he served food to, as the house grew to accommodate more people.

"Our house in particular has stayed at the top of his priority list over so many years, it's incredible," Eros said. "I know it's important to him, but he makes it feel like it's a no-brainer, so that true kind of partnership, we know we can rely on him and what he does goes above and beyond."

Tripplett said that another family has since joined in to help produce the meals on Friday nights, now that more families are staying at the Palo Alto location. He said it's been great seeing the enthusiasm as the families eat their meal together.

"I wanted to do something special for the house and I just decided, here's what I'll do: I'll feed the whole house every Friday," Tripplett said of his decision 15 years ago. "And that's what made me do it, because you feel good about doing it. It's the one good thing that I know I have done on Friday — I have fed the Ronald House, and feeling good is what it's all about."