Please don't can those pop tabs

Posted: Saturday, August 15, 2009 12:00 am | Updated: 5:15 pm, Tue Sep 15, 2009.

Peter Adelsen Staff Writer | 0 comments

Pop tabs on aluminum cans have never been worth so much to children.

Veterans for a Better Community, a concept founded by Jerry Paul, has been collecting pop tabs for three years. He calls it a concept because he says every veteran should serve the community.

Each year's tab goal is tougher to reach than the last. The first time they collected tabs was for American Legion Ladies Auxiliary Post No. 6, and they gave more than 77,000 tabs that year, he said.

Last year, Veterans for a Better Community began collecting tabs for Ronald McDonald House Charities' Pop Tab Drop on Monument Circle. He said they collected 903,000 tabs, which was 97,000 tabs short of its 1 million tab goal. The overall goal for the drive was 8 million tabs and that was easily surpassed when they received 15 million tabs, he said.

So far this year, Paul has collected more than a million tabs.

"I have four 96-gallon city trash totes full and one 45-gallon container full," he said.

He said the city of Kokomo is letting him use the city cans for his tabs.

Kokomo-Center Township Consolidated School Corp. gave more than 458,000 tabs to him since February, he said.

He said the tab-collecting is to help the entire community.

"This is not about me; this is about something we can do as a community," he said.

The veterans' concept also would like to set up a plaquein the name of Riley Kids of Howard County put up prominently in the county building to show what this community can do, he said.

People can drop off their tabs at the following places: UAW Local 685, Mac's Market, King's Heating and Plumbing, American Legion Post No. 6, Hair Dynamics, Kokomo Perspective, and CAM.

"We are on our final push, and we would like to get more people interested," he said.

The deadline to donate is Aug. 5, and the event at Monument Circle is Aug. 7, he said.

"We would like to get at least 1,100,000 tabs this year."

http://kokomoperspective.com/news/article_8103d6a8-d10b-5bcd-a457-eb059432e908.html