Palos West Collects 129 Pounds of Pop Tabs for Ronald McDonald House

Palos West Elementary School students recently held a pull tab drive to benefit Ronald McDonald House at Hope Children’s Hospital in Oak Lawn.

This is the 8th year students have collected the pull tabs that can be found on the top of pop cans, soup cans and other cans said Terri Segredo, a nurse at Palos West who organized the collection event.

Segredo said that the tabs are easy to collect and can help with operational expenses for the non-profit organization.

“They are worth quite a bit of money to the Ronald McDonald House who recycles them for their aluminum,” she said. Segredo said that many Palos 118 families save the tabs year-round waiting for the school’s annual collection drive. She said that over the years the school has collected close to 600 pounds of tabs and has a goal of reaching 790 pounds, the equivalent of 1 million tabs, which will qualify them to get the school’s name placed on the “Thanks a Million” tree at Ronald McDonald House.

The Palos West classrooms held a competition this year to see who could collect the most with preschool teacher Lee Harwig’s class crowned the winner collecting 29 pounds of tabs.

“Since Ms. Terri began this project, I’ve been keeping pop tabs for her year-round,” said Ms. Harwig who shares the information with her classroom families early on in the school year and asks friends and family to save tabs too.

“It’s fun to contribute and hopefully this is the year Palos West makes it to a million tabs!,” said Harwig.