Million Pop Tabs
By: Ray Doughty
Updated: September 17, 2010
It took more than 12 years to do it but the kids at Culver Elementary School in Indiana finally got a big reward for a community effort.
They, along with their community and the classes before them, collected more than a million pop can tabs all for the Ronald McDonald House.
It's a big day at Culver Elementary. The kids are anxious to find out who's the big surprise.
It's Ronald McDonald and he's visiting the kids in Culver because they've collect more than one-million pop tabs, buckets full, to be donated to the Ronald McDonald House at Riley Hospital in Indy.
Principal Chuck Kitchell says "We spend a lot of time on academics at school, and we have to do that. But these are the kinds of things the students are really going to remember. They're going to remember being a part of a million pop tabs."
This is the Ronald McDonald Family Room at Memorial Hospital where parents can come and sleep and relax, even take a shower while their kids are in the hospital. And you would be surprised how many of the kids in Culver have been here or at Riley Hospital in Indianapolis.
Parent and teacher Jean Ahlenius says "she was having trouble breathing."
Jean Ahlenius remembers clearly the nights she spent at Ronald McDonald.
Jean Ahlenius says "She really needed mom."
When her daughter wasn't even two years old.
Jean Ahlenius says "I'm a teacher here so it makes me very proud that we all worked together to do something great for other people."
Ronald McDonald says "Can you think of anything that would be worse than having a little one in the hospital. A pull tab is only this big, not very big, but you put a lot of them together and you can make a big difference."
And so the kids may have big shoes to fill but by filling the buckets with so many tabs, they're already on the right foot.
The students and community are thrilled to have finally reached their goal. Ronald's crew estimates the tabs will be worth about $1,000 once recycled.
