Epson US
The working mom breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the computer room at the Long Beach Ronald McDonald House® (LBRMH), her “home away from home” while her seriously ill nine-year-old daughter stayed at nearby Miller’s Children Hospital Long Beach. The recently opened House has been a refuge for her and other families of children being treated for cancer and other life-threatening illnesses at Los Angeles County hospitals and medical facilities.
With the computer room’s latest technology, she and her family can stay connected to outside jobs, schools, friends and family. At all hours, parents and children have access to wireless Internet and computers for email, networking and research, and the EPSON WorkForce Pro WP-4540 all-in-one printers for printing, copying, scanning or faxing.
The non-profit could not manage any of its programs or provide for the families without the generosity of community partners and volunteers. “We are especially grateful for corporate partners like Epson America,” said Cheri Bazley, LBRMH executive director. “Epson’s donations, including all-in-one printers, digital projectors, a projection screen, a scanner, and financial and employee support, have been a great help in opening our doors to families in need.”
LBRMH provides its guests with 23 guest rooms, a living room and open-air courtyard, plus a dining room and kitchen. “This can be a time of tremendous distress for both children and their families, so having a place to stay near the hospital is vital,” she said. “But we don’t just provide accommodations — we make sure that care and comfort is provided on many levels.”
All-in-One Teamwork
Like all non-profit businesses, LBRMH needs to run as effectively as possible on limited resources. The gift of Epson’s high-speed WorkForce all-in-one printers, which staff and volunteers share via built-in wireless networking, has helped forge an efficient organization.
“Not only do our families have their own EPSON WorkForce all-in-one in the computer room, but our staff and I also use two in our business offices,” she said. “They’ve become essential office tools for printing, copying, scanning or faxing tasks – whether donor correspondence, thank you notes, volunteer mailings, flyers, speaker handouts, event invitations or spreadsheets.”
LBRMH used the all-in-one to gather and share feedback from families via a guest survey. After guests anonymously filled out printed survey forms, staff put the findings into a spreadsheet with accompanying quotes. “We used the all-in-one to scan, print and share the results while learning more about what our families think about experiences here,” said Bazley. “Epson’s all-in-one printer gave us an easy way to share our findings with our donors so they better understand the important cause they’re supporting,”
The LBRMH office finds the Epson’s WorkForce Pro WP-4540 very useful for expediting community outreach projects, creating and copying large quantities of documents or making speaker handouts for community presentations. “It’s great for helping us produce material to get the word out about our fundraisers like The Walk for Kids™, a 5K event to raise funds and awareness for the services and programs of our Southern California Chapter,” said Bazley.
In the middle of projects, staff members don’t have to stop as often to reload paper, due to high-volume 580-sheet paper capacity including an 80-sheet rear-feed tray for alternative paper, envelopes, labels and card stock. Using the 30-page two-sided Automatic Document Feeder, they can quickly copy, scan or fax one- or two-sided documents, reducing paper usage by up to 50 percent. The EPSON WorkForce Pro WP-4540 also saves LBRMH time and money with up to 50 percent less cost per page than color laser printers. For high-volume scanning jobs, the staff also uses the EPSON WorkForce Pro GT-S80 Document Scanner.
Positive Projections
Bazley believes she and her executive staff give more compelling community presentations when they take along the EPSON PowerLite 1775W Multimedia Projector. “The projector is lightweight, ultra-bright and easy to set up,” said Bazley. “It’s a great way to share our mission and programs when we go out to present to community groups.”
LBRMH also uses an EPSON PowerLite Presentation Projector with an EPSON Projection Screen in its own offices for internal presentations and training.
While the dream is just beginning in Long Beach, there are more than 300 Ronald McDonald Houses in 30 countries and regions around the world. Ronald McDonald House Charities® of Southern California supports Houses in Los Angeles, Orange, Loma Linda, Pasadena, Bakersfield, and now Long Beach.
“We are very grateful for the EPSON all-in-one printers and projectors that help us do more for our families and work more efficiently, but Epson is so much more to us than just business equipment,” said Bazley. “We feel that the company is wholeheartedly invested in our mission, and that means a great deal to us. This treasured community partner motivates us even more to give our families in crisis a ‘home away from home’ of exceptional standards.”
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Epson provided the EPSON WorkForce Pro WP-4540, EPSON PowerLite 1775W, EPSON PowerLite, EPSON Presentation Screen and EPSON WorkForce Pro GT-S80 to the Long Beach Ronald McDonald House for business use. EPSON, WorkForce and PowerLite are registered trademarks of Seiko Epson Corporation. All other product and brand names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective companies.
