It was taco night at the Ronald McDonald House, but 2 1/2-year-old Konnor Eddinger wasn’t ready to eat just yet. Instead, he used the new cast covering his left arm to beat on a low table in the playroom like a drum, making a satisfying thud, thud, thud.

After suffering a stroke when he was just a baby, Konnor experienced delays on the right side of his body. He was a late walker and typically kept his right arm straight at his side, his hand in a little fist. His doctors at the Kennedy Krieger Institute recommended putting his left arm in a cast that would retrain his brain and force him to make use of his right limb.

Within just a few days of a four-week program, Konnor showed signs of improvement, said his mom, Karli Eddinger, as she tried to dissuade him — with mixed results — from using the cast as a musical instrument. As a music teacher and single mom, Karli said she’s grateful for the support and tasty meals she’s had at the Ronald McDonald House, where she and Konnor are staying while he’s in physical therapy.

“It’s really nice to just be able to focus on his treatment,” said Eddinger, who lives in Alexandria, Virginia.

For parents with kids who are sick or in treatment at the area’s pediatric hospitals, the Ronald McDonald House can be a godsend. The 55-room facility in East Baltimore offers free housing and food to families from out of town, whether they’re from elsewhere in Maryland or from as far as Iran and China. At a time when parents’ wallets are stretched thin between mounting medical bills and challenges working while their kids are in treatment, the program helps ease their financial and mental load.

But the institution’s meal program, a critical part of its mission and one reliant on volunteers and donations, is at risk. In her 15 years with the Ronald McDonald House, CEO Sandy Pagnotti says she’s never seen the need this urgent before. Where there used to be a waitlist for donors eager to bring in meals, she said, they now have some holes in the calendar. “We don’t have a budget for food and drinks and fresh produce,” she said.

Pagnotti advises groups to prepare food for anywhere from 80 to 90 people, since not everyone who is staying there swings by for every meal. She always suggests bringing a vegetarian option as well as a gluten-free one, too.

A few local eateries like Chiapparelli’s and the Atlas Restaurant Group donate meals regularly. “It’s always something amazing,” she said. In those situations, the Ronald McDonald House provides the volunteers to serve the food to families.

But it doesn’t have to be complicated. Some evenings, it’s a baked potato bar. A few nights back, a group came in and made cheesesteaks and grilled cheese sandwiches to order for dinner. “The families went bananas,” Pagnotti said.

Previously located near Lexington Market, the Ronald McDonald House moved to its current, upgraded facility in East Baltimore six years ago. Pagnotti said she aims for the vibe to be “the Ritz meets Disney meets Grandma’s house,” a nurturing and even whimsical oasis where families can exhale.

A two-story statue of a heart sits atop the building, above a spacious roof deck where kids can watch the fireworks on the Fourth of July. There’s even a “magic room” with a big wooden door where kids can pick out a special toy during their stay. “It’s not the big stuff,” Pagnotti said, showing off a closet full of homemade blankets given out to children when they check in. “It’s the little stuff.”

Current volunteers at the Ronald McDonald House say the rewards are immense. On a recent morning, members of the Red Shoe Crew — a group of young professionals in the area who gather together once a month to serve a meal — freshened up plates of breakfast pastries for families.

Volunteer Lindsay Melvin said she was a little intimidated the first time she came. “I’m not that great in the kitchen,” she said. She started out with a low-stakes task: scooping ice for drinks. Over time, she’s gotten hooked on the connections she forms with families she serves — hearing their stories about what brought them to Baltimore, or where they came from.

One such family is Mae Ledford’s. Ledford, who lives in Richmond, Virginia, shared a single room in Baltimore with her mom and three children for months while her 8-year-old daughter Josie underwent surgery and physical therapy to treat a limb length difference.

The family was supposed to go home weeks earlier, but after Josie experienced complications, her doctors advised them to stay close by. Weeks later, Ledford was spending her days going back and forth between the hospital and trying to find a quiet space in the Ronald McDonald House to homeschool her two older kids.

One thing Ledford didn’t have to stress about: figuring out what and how to feed everyone. “Even if we have a crazy day, then we always know at 6 o’clock we’re gonna have dinner,” Ledford said as she kept an eye on her 18-month-old baby teetering around the dining room chairs.

Families who stay at the Ronald McDonald House get fridge and pantry space, and have the option of cooking themselves if they want. But it would be a lot to do all the time. “It’s expensive to order Instacart and GrubHub every single day,” said Deniel Williams, a North Carolina gym teacher, sitting before plates of pancakes and cheesy eggs he prepared for his wife and kids. The meals provided for them have “been a big help.”

After three weeks in Baltimore, the Williamses were just about to drive back home to Durham, North Carolina, after Williams’ 11-year-old daughter, who suffers from debilitating depression, completed an outpatient program at nearby Johns Hopkins Medicine. He was leaving it up to God to ensure that they were on the right path.

“We put everything we had into this,” he said of her time in the program. “We have to believe this is going to work.”