Veterans for a Better Community collecting pop tabs for needy

Posted: July 11, 2009

By Peter Adelsen

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 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 Schools gave more than 458,000 tabs to him since February, he said.

He said the tab collecting is to help out 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 plaque in 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 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 August 5 and the event at Monument Circle is August 7, he said.

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

Link: http://kokomoperspective.com/news/article_e0fca6fb-c3bd-5e2c-86db-60ff18fe2472.html