The load for Sam Manders is a little lighter now — about 150 pounds lighter.
A student at Mountain View Christian School, Manders made good on his promise to help the Ronald McDonald House for the fourth year through their Tab Top Collection Program, bringing all 156-and-a-half pounds of aluminum can tabs to Portland, Ore., this May.
It’s his biggest contribution to date.
The Ronald McDonald House is adjacent to Doernbecher Children’s Hospital, Oregon Health & Sciences University and the Shriners Hospital for Children. At the Ronald McDonald House, workers assist families with housing while their child or children are being treated for illness at one of these hospitals.
The house, notes Kathrin Sumpter, Manders’ mother, is more than just room and board.
“We discovered that the house is a haven for parents and siblings that are already coping with the most difficult circumstances — a sick child,” Sumpter writes. “Many of the families are tapped out financially but they are never turned away. Many times, siblings are living in tow and the focal point of the family becomes the illness of their brother and/or sister.”
The house includes televisions, computers, board games and books for youths, plus laundry facilities and a huge kitchen with volunteers helping each week to prepare dinners for weary families, Sumpter notes.
A number of Sequim individuals, businesses and schools helped Manders along the way, Sumpter notes, including: Ingrid Lehrer, Wayne and Peggy King, Jay Richmond and the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Larry Arnott and Mountain View Christian School, Candy Olmer, Nancy Drew, Linda Sundquist, Sharon Lake, Greywolf Elementary School, Gwen Porterfield and the Olympic View Combined Club, Sally Erlendson, Jeanne Hasenpflug, Karen Norton, Vernita Ray and Sumpters’ own Sequim Martial Arts. Port Angeles individuals who helped Manders’ cause include Tracy and the staff at Angeles Furniture, Carol Gates and Agnew Helpful Neighbors, Stacy Hopkins, Eagles Ladies Aux. No. 483, Norm Olsen and Diane Thornton.
