When 6-year-old Ky’Mijia Thomas heard that he was going to meet the popular teen  R&B boy band Mindless Behavior, he was so excited, he couldn’t sleep.

He looked them up on the computer and found a video of them performing.

“I can’t stop watching it,” he said with a wide grin.

The group had just finished two sold-out concerts at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta on Aug. 4 and 5, and was headed to Jacksonville , Miss., when they stopped by the Ronald McDonald’s House near Emory Hospital on Aug. 6 to cheer up some of the young patients who are battling cancer.

“He enjoyed seeing them,” said his Tamara Washington, who was snapping pictures of her son’s brief encounter with stars.

Washington said that Ky’Mijia kept complaining for months about pain but they had no idea why.

“It got so he couldn’t walk,” she said.

Turned out he has a very rare form of cancer that afflicts about 400 children a year.

While he is getting treatment, Ky’Mijia and his mother who are both from Albany, GA., are staying at the Ronald McDonald House, which is more like a three-star hotel.

They moved in on July 21 and will be there until his treatment ends on Aug. 28.

She said he is doing well.

“He is a lot stronger than I am,” she said, “He keeps my hopes up.”

Thirteen-year-old Savion Finney also got to take a photo with the quartet, Princeton, Ray Ray, Roc Royal and Prodigy. They also autographed photos of themselves for the kids. The group, which was brought together in Los Angeles by famed music producer Walter Millsap, hit the road as the opening act for Backstreet Boys, Justin Bieber and Janet Jackson.

Savion said he has been a fan of Mindless Behavior since it hit the national stage.

During the visit, not even his illness could wipe the smile from his face, discolored by the effects of the radiation and chemotherapy he is undergoing for Lukemia.

Savion got to speak with Ray Ray, who is his favorite Mindless Behavior member.

“I said ‘what’s up,’ and he said, ‘what’s up back,” said Savion, a Shiloh Middle School eighth grader who is being home schooled during his treatment.

Ray Ray said it was great to meet the children.

“We like to meet people,” he said. “We want to make them happy and show them that we are normal just like them.”

The group’s month-long #1 Girl Tour – named for their first album released last September – ends Aug. 18 at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland, CA.

The 50-bedroom Ronald McDonald’s House, which was half full the day Mindless Behavior visited, serves 2000 families a year.

Carrie Bowden, the charities marketing and communications director, said the Atlanta Ronald McDonald House is supported by metro-Atlanta’s 60 McDonald’s operators and the community. Families pay $20 a night to stay and stay an average of seven nights.

“But they can stay here as long as their child is getting care,” she said. “No family is ever turned away because of the inability to pay.”

The non-profit’s biggest annual fundraiser, the black-tie Hearts and Hand Gala, which is set for Oct. 6 this year , will feature comedian and television star Jeff Foxworthy. Other fundraisers include a golf tournament in the spring, the Brookhaven Dines-In, where donors pay $150-$250 for a six-course-meal in private homes.

Atlanta BMW operators also sponsor an annual raffle to support the non-profit. This year, the grand prize for the $100 raffle ticket is a 2013 BMW 640i Convertible.

Altanta McDonald’s operators and their customers donate $1.2 million annually to both houses. Customers support the houses through collection jars in the restaurants. Statewide, there are seven Ronald McDonald’s Houses. Worldwide, the independent nonprofit, Ronald McDonald House Charities, Inc., operates 318 houses that provide temporary housing to critically-ill children being treated at hospitals.

The LEED-certified Ronald McDonald House near Emory was built in 2008.

It replaced the original 16-room house that opened in 1979 as the fourth Ronald McDonald House worldwide. It serves children being treated at Egleston Children’s Hospital. It is one of two in Atlanta.

The other, an 11-room house on Peachtree Dunwoody Road that opened in 1984, serves children being treated at Scottish Rite Hospital.

Eligible patients, who must live at least 50 miles from Atlanta, are referred to the houses by the hospitals treating them. They get the comforts of home, nutritious meals prepared and served by volunteers, and contact with other families in similar situations.

Bowden says the houses are in constant need of volunteers to man their check-in desks, greet families, answer the phones, keep the kitchen and public areas organized, supply and prepare meals on site daily for the families and plan and coordinate evening family activities.

To volunteer, contact Nicole Holley at nicole.holley@armhc.org or 404-315-1133 ext. 1118.