SEQUIM — Sam Manders has outdone himself again.
Over the past year, the 14-year-old accumulated 258.5 pounds of tab tops — those little rings that help you open cans — and has bagged them up for transport to the Ronald McDonald House in Portland, which recycles them for cash.
The house is a homelike inn for families of ailing youngsters at nearby Doernbecher Children’s Hospital or the Shriners Hospital for Children.
Many of the children are suffering from cancer, the disease that killed Sam’s father. Jim Manders, a former Peninsula Daily News city editor and longtime North Olympic Peninsula journalist, was just 58 when he died in June 2005.
Sam, in third grade at the time of his father’s death, made up his mind to do something positive.
That something was to collect the recyclable rings for Ronald McDonald House Pull-Tab Program.
Word got out to Sam’s friends, and friends of his mother, Kathrin Sumpter of Sequim Martial Arts, and stepfather, Ed Sumpter of Blue Sky Real Estate.
The Ronald McDonald House sells the aluminum pull tabs and sells them to a Portland based metal company.
Among other things, the money that is raised from the program is used to cover operational expenses, food and lodging for families who are unable to pay.
Numbers keep growing
The tab-top numbers climbed fast, with Sam repeatedly breaking his own records. In 2008, he collected 265,477; last year he transported 361,419 tab tops to Portland.
This Monday, Sam and his mom will drive 439,416 tops to the Ronald McDonald House, where assistant house manager Lindsay Dance awaits.
This year’s haul is 45 pounds heavier than 2009’s, Kathrin Sumpter noted.
“It’s kind of a big trip to Portland every year, but I wouldn’t dream of squelching his enthusiasm over it. I’m excited that since the age of 9, he’s formed a sense of great reward doing charitable work,” she said.
“I’ve never seen anything quite like it at his age.”
She added that her son has been in the hospital a couple of times for leg surgeries.
“They were overnight stints, but he’s developed a lot of compassion for the kids that are laid up in the hospital for weeks or months on end,” she said.
Many supporters
Sam and his family were showered with support from 38 friends and businesses around Sequim, each of whom saved their tab tops for him.
“I just like doing it,” said the teen, who graduated Wednesday from Mountain View Christian School and will start classes at Sequim High School in September.
And the jaunt to Portland with his mother is just “a great trip.”
Sam also noted that tab tops — pop tops, flip tops, whatever you want to call them — are found not only on soda cans but also on tennis-ball containers, soup cans and pet-food cans.
To find out about contributing to Sam’s 2011 collection, phone Sumpter at 360-683-4799.
For more information on Ronald McDonald House Charities of Oregon and Southwest Washington and the Pull-Tab Program, see www.rmhcoregon.org.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladaily news.com.
