Time to Weigh In

Getting on the scale at the Ronald McDonald House is not like getting on the scale at home.  We’re weighing in pop tabs gaining an upwards of 20, 30 and even 40 pounds!  It’s that time of year that schools across the region are bringing in donations for the end of the year.  Those “filled to the brim” bins are a welcome site at the Ronald McDonald House. The Ronald McDonald House expect to get over 20,000 pop tabs in 2012.  In the last month, Ronald McDonald House has received donations from Willow Lake, SD; Sturgis, SD; Jackson, MN; and Spirit Lake, IA and many schools from Sioux Falls.

Did you know?

·         1 pound equals 1,267 tabs

·         1 ton = 2,534,000 tabs

·         1 night’s stay at the Ronald McDonald House = 93 lbs of pop tabs (approx.)

If  pop tab collections stay on track in 2012 they will equal 215 nights at the Ronald McDonald House for families with sick and injured children.

Yikes!  You pop tab collectors rock!

They’re small.  No bigger than a quarter; but, these little pieces of shiny aluminum make a huge difference in the lives of families who stay at the Ronald McDonald House. One example of an organized pop tab donation that came our way was by the Kappa Psi Pharmaceutical Fraternity. The organization exists to support all projects which will advance the profession of pharmacy and to actively participate in service that inspires its members across the country.  The Province VIII group brings together five states including Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska.  When they met for their convention, they used the opportunity to gather to benefit South Dakota’s Ronald McDonald House.  Pop tabs are collected between meetings and donated to the closest Ronald McDonald house. The participants were encouraged to bring pop tabs with attendance, and the subsequent donation (are you ready for this?) was two-hundred twenty-eight pounds. 

From Brookings our friend Gary drove down to unload the boxes of tabs on a beautiful spring morning. “Many chapters across the country are doing this,” Gary concludes. “It’s easy to do, and yet the results are very beneficial to a great organization.” 

With Gary’s chapter at SDSU, Gamma Kappa, members collected tabs from local establishments in their hometowns.  They are now collecting for their next meeting to be held in Omaha.  We’re always open for the next pop tab donation in Sioux Falls, and you don’t even have to look at the scale!