By June Mathews
If you’ve ever dreamed of seeing your name in print along with the likes of Miss America Mallory Hagan and FOX6 meteorologist J.P Dice, among others, here’s your chance.
Trussville’s Katie Malone is compiling a cookbook to benefit Birmingham’s Ronald McDonald House, and she needs your help. Titled “From Our House, For the House,” the book is scheduled for publication this fall and will be available for purchase in time for the holiday season.
The Ronald McDonald House provides a home-away-from-home for families of children undergoing treatment at Children’s Hospital of Alabama.
Plans call for the cookbook to contain recipes from local citizens and civic groups, as well as famous people and restaurants. Several celebrities have already responded to Malone’s request for submissions, and recipes are arriving from across the U.S.
“I grew up cooking with my grandmother and thought it was only fitting for me to bring these two things that I love together to make a difference,” Malone said. “It also signifies something that the families at the house receive from volunteers: home-cooked meals. People come from all over the state to provide food for these families, keeping them from having to constantly purchase hospital food.”
The 21-year-old University of Alabama telecommunication and film major started working with Ronald McDonald House when she was a senior at Hewitt-Trussville High School.
“I was on the student council, and we hosted a pop-tab drive throughout the school,” she said. “At the end of the fundraiser, we delivered the pop-tabs to the house in Birmingham and got to tour the facility. I instantly fell in love with this organization.”
Malone later made Ronald McDonald House her personal platform within the Miss America Organization. In addition to collecting countless pop-tabs, she’s headed up Easter basket drives and coin-a-thons to benefit the Birmingham house. Her efforts recently resulted in Malone being named Ronald McDonald House Charities of Alabama’s 2013 Volunteer of the Year.
“This organization provides so much for families throughout the world, and I feel so blessed to be a part of something so amazing,” she said.
Crowned Miss Point Mallard in Decatur earlier this month, Malone is set to compete in the Miss Alabama Pageant for the fourth time in June 2014.
Recipes for “From Our House, For the House” may be submitted online at www.mad4rmh.com. The deadline for submissions is July 31.