Some people like to keep tabs on things.
Sam Manders is all about giving tabs away.
The Sequim youth recently competed his fifth annual effort at collecting tab tops – you know, the metallic rings the open soda cans – for the Ronald McDonald House Tab Top Program.
His total this year: 361,419, beating his previous best set in 2008 by more than 95,000.
That’s more than 213 pounds of love in the form of aluminum tabs.
The Ronald McDonald Tab Top Program helps families spend nights at the Ronald McDonald House. It also pays for bed linens, cleaning supplies and miscellaneous items that keep the "house" running.
Since the Seattle McDonald’s doesn’t have a tab top program, Manders and mom Kathrin Sumpter are headed back to Portland’s Ronald McDonald House that’s 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 children are being treated for illness at one of these hospitals.
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.
Manders, a 13-year-old student at Mountain View Christian School, started collecting the tab tops in 2005. His first collection brought in 1,581 pop tops. By 2008, his collection totaled 50 pounds worth of tab tops.
Sumpter said a number of local citizens and organizations helped with Manders’ efforts in 2009: Connie Collins, Mary Dominguez, Nancy Drew, Sally Erlendson, Georgia Fraker, Carol Gates, Kenneth and Beverly Meyer, Karen Norton.
Also Candy and Richard Olmer, Norm Olsen, Anne Olson, Gwen Porterfield, Jay Richmond, David Schulz, Marybeth Stewart, Linda Sundquist, Diane Thornton, Sequim Seventh-day Adventist Church, Agnew Helpful Neighbors, Port Angeles Eagles Ladies Auxiliary No. 483, Greywolf Elementary School, Mountain View Christian School, Olympic View Combine Club and Sequim Martial Arts.
Reach Michael Dashiell at miked@sequimgazette.com.
