Bakersfield Life

Room at the inn

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       Some people say that their work is their life, but no one could mean it as much Scarlett Sabin, who has quickly become the face of an important local facility that provides a temporary home to families with an ill child.
      Sabin, the house manager for the sparkling new Bakersfield Ronald McDonald House, is so passionate about her work with BRMH that the line between where Sabin ends and where BRMH begins is a bit blurry.
       “I don’t count how many hours I work. I do my job until it’s done. It’s not an 8 to 5 job,” said Sabin.
       As a young girl living in Toledo, Ohio, Sabin showed the drive that would eventually aid her in running a program as big as the Ronald McDonald House, even when she was just a teenager. At 17, her family moved to Visalia, and Sabin wasn’t happy about leaving her friends, so she decided to live on her own.
      “When I turned 18, I moved myself back to Ohio without a guardian so I could finish high school with my friends. After graduation, I moved back to Visalia,” she said, eventually finding her way to Bakersfield where she worked retail and attended college.
       She joined junior league, took a job with the American Cancer Society running the Discovery Shop and, through connections, received a job offer to work with the American Heart Association as a youth market director (in charge of school site development and of activities like Jump Rope for Heart). In 2001, she became its executive director.
      Sabin doesn’t consider herself a job hopper; she loved the 10 years she spent with the American Heart Association, but when she learned she was on the short list of people to take charge of the planned Ronald McDonald House on the campus of Bakersfield Memorial Hospital, she couldn’t help but give the idea some attention. 
      See, Sabin has a unique perspective on childhood illnesses. Her own son, Michael, was born with a birth defect, and she and her husband spent many nights at his bedside as he went through surgery every two weeks for the first seven months of his life.
       Like others, Sabin first believed that the Ronald McDonald House was for young children with cancer, but it isn’t. The mission of the Ronald McDonald House program is to provide a “home-away-from-home” for families so they can stay close by their hospitalized child at little or no cost. Houses are designed to be a haven, where nothing else matters but healing a child. Families shouldn’t have to worry about where to stay, where to get their next meal or where they will sleep at night.
       “My husband and I didn’t know what to do. We were scared, unsure, and no one seemed to understand,” she said, adding that her son received treatment at UCLA after spending his first 18 hours at Memorial Hospital, where he was born.
       Working at BMRH was an easy decision for Sabin once she realized she had experience to offer families facing the most frightening days of their lives.
       “I have a special perspective. I have walked in their shoes,” she said.
      Today, she spends most of her time at “the house love built” (the motto of the Bakersfield Ronald McDonald House).  Her job consists of running the daily activities of BRMH and placing families, even when there doesn’t appear to be room.
        “We never turn anyone away,” said Sabin. “We are the world’s smallest House. We have just three bedrooms, but if we can’t place families, we have the Marriott that will take them and so will Carriage House Estates. There’s always room.”
      Sabin credits the community with the immediate success of BRMH, from donations and volunteer labor that enabled the house to come in $40,000 under construction budget to the families who insist on cooking Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners so residents don’t spend the holidays alone. Bakersfield wants a Ronald McDonald House to succeed, she says.
      “In this community are many people who have stayed in a Ronald McDonald House across the country. They want to ensure the success right here. Every dollar we raise stays local and is not sent to the national organization,” said Sabin.
     For donations, Sabin says that even small amounts can pay for milk and eggs for a month. No donation is too small, and this community ensures their Ronald McDonald House has everything it needs. The phone “blows up” when Sabin puts the word out for help.
      “It’s not just the house that love built,” said Sabin of the overwhelming assistance she receives from volunteers and donors. “It’s truly the house that this community built.”