As a family we would really like to recycle, but living in the country in a rural area makes it rather difficult. When we had Blake, we stumbled upon a new opportunity for us to recycle (in a small way) and actually make a difference (well, in addition to keeping the additional trash out of the landfills).
Saving our Pop Tabs, and getting our friends and family to do the same.
How does this help??
Every pop tab makes a difference to the Ronald McDonald House.
The Ronald McDonald House is near and dear to my heart, after having lived there for 2 weeks last month while Blake was in the NICU in the City. I’ve always heard of them, and I’ve even seen the donation boxes at various McDonald’s restaurants–but I had no clue what all they did until I needed them. They truly are the House that Love Built, and they are a home away from home for dozens of families with hospitalized children. When you enter their doors, all your cares, stresses and fears disappear for a bit while you are able to relate to other families going through similar situations. Families have their own private bedroom, children have a big playroom, and volunteers come in nightly to prepare dinner. All of this, and more, for a small nightly donation (in our case $7/night)–however no family is turned away for not being able to pay.
The RMH operates primarily on donations and volunteers, so every little thing is a big deal. Nothing is too small, even a pop tab.
The Ronald McDonald House freely gives this cute little boxes out to whoever wants one so they can fill it up with pop-tabs and bring it in. (You don’t have to use their box, you can use any container you want). From there, the RMH takes the pop tabs to a local recycling center and the money goes directly back to the house. We do not drink very much soda/pop, so it may take 10 years to fill our little house
If you aren’t big soda drinkers, but know someone who is–pick up a box, or two and get to collecting those pop tabs! Why not put one in your break room at work? Or the teacher work room at school?
Don’t want to mess with pop-tabs? There are other ways you can help out the Ronald McDonald House in your area. Go here to find out how!
Supporting the Ronald McDonald House Works For Me! (and my family!) 
This post is also linked to Things I Love Thursday.
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Great reminder, Phoebe! My family lived in a RMH for 100 nights when my second child was born four months early. It was an amazing blessing to us. I actually have a post about some RMH facts scheduled to go up tomorrow, ironically. Love that you’re getting the word out about pop-tabs… such a simple thing we can all do to help!
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I had totally forgotten about this. We stayed at Ronald McDonald House when ds was a baby and had eye surgery at Duke. We loved the house. I don’t drink pop, but dh does so I’m putting a note on the box inside the fridge.
Thank you for the reminder!
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That is so awesome! I am so glad you posted this. We recently had to move our Grandmother out of her home of 40 years, and while doing so, found BAGS of soda can tabs! I had no idea what to do with them, but decided to keep them in case a school or something needed them. I now know what I will do!! Thanks for your post!
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When I was in college, I used to save my pop tabs for my sorority friends to use for the RMH. Somehow I’d forgotten about that. I’ll have to get back into the habit. Thanks for the reminder!
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I lived there for three months after my twins were born (in Missouri) in 1993-94, and then for a few days here and there in the spring of 1994 when one of them had to have major liver surgery at Arkansas Children’s Hospital. They are near and dear to my heart.
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I am going to check with my local McDonald’s and see if I can get a box. I used to save these for my Grandmother and just completely forgot about it. Thanks so much for this post!
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Wow! I have donated toiletries and such to the RMH before, but I had no idea they gathered things like this for recycling! We don’t drink alot of sodas around here either, but we can certainly start collecting them any way!
Thanks for sharing!
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The Ronald McDonald house kept offering to give us a free room to stay in during Zack’s hospital stay. It was so sweet of them but we never actually wound up needing it {we bunked in Zack’s room with him instead}. It was a relief to know it was there though in the event that Zack got a roommate and only one of us could stay with him! Since then, we have been collecting poptabs in the same cute little box for them.
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