In December 2024, David and Deborah’s beautiful baby boy, Benji, came into the world. But his arrival wasn’t the one they’d imagined. Benji was delivered by emergency C-section and rushed straight to the ICU at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. A moment that should have been pure joy became, in an instant, one of the most frightening of their lives.
With Benji in intensive care and three other children at home, Maya, Josie and Nathanael, David and Deborah faced an impossible situation. How do you stay close to your newborn in hospital without the family falling apart around you? How do you afford to be there, day after day, when you live far from the hospital and hotel costs aren’t something most families can absorb for weeks on end?
That's where Ronald McDonald House stepped in.
A home away from home
Ronald McDonald House UK provides free accommodation right next to specialist children’s hospitals, so families don’t have to choose between being there for their child and keeping everything else going. No hotel bills. No exhausting drives home after a day on the ward. Just a room, a kitchen, and a community of other parents who understand exactly what you’re going through.
For David and Deborah, Ronald McDonald House became exactly that. They were given a room for nearly a month over Christmas and New Year, a time that should have been at home around the tree with the kids. Then again over Valentine’s Day. Then again over Easter, when Benji had his life-saving surgery in Southampton. Three separate stays, across some of the most significant dates in the family calendar, all spent keeping vigil by their son’s side.
And through all of it, they were there. Christmas and Easter were made special for the children, gifts under the tree, Easter eggs on the ward, small acts of kindness that meant the world in the middle of the hardest chapter David and Deborah have ever faced
"Ronald McDonald House became our home from home, and they made things special for the kids even in the middle of hospital life. We’ll always be grateful for what they did for us.”
David Hartup, Managing Director
The 79 Mile Mission
So when Ronald McDonald House UK announced their 79 Mile Mission fundraiser, David and Deborah didn’t hesitate. They know better than most what it means to need that support.
Throughout July, the whole family, David, Deborah, Maya, Josie, Nathanael and Benji in the carrier, will be walking 79 miles together. The same little boy who spent his first months in intensive care, now strapped to his parents, helping raise money for the charity that kept his family close.
To put it in real terms: £70 covers one night of accommodation for a parent who needs to be close. Every mile walked and every pound raised means someone doesn’t have to choose between their child and a bed for the night.
How you can help
If their story has resonated with you, any donation, goes directly to helping other parents in the same position right now. You can donate directly on the family's fundraising page.
From all of us at Reflective IT
We’re immensely proud of David, Deborah and the whole family for taking this on, and for being willing to share something so personal with our clients and community. What Ronald McDonald House did for them, they do for hundreds of other parents every single day.
If you know David and Deborah, you’ll know they don’t do things by halves. 79 miles across a whole month, with four children in tow and Benji in the carrier, is exactly that.
Go on, The Hartup's. The whole team is behind you.
