Trio of fourth graders organize pop top drive for charity

    COMMERCE CITY — How many soda pop tabs does it take to fill two trash bags?

Photo by Emily Dougherty

From left, fourth graders Kyle Melvin, Daniel Jimenez and Riley Gonzales started a fundraiser at their school to raise money for a local Ronald McDonald House. The charity drive may have involved drinking a lot of pop.

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    The answer is too many to count.
    However, students at Turnberry Elementary spent the past month trying to figure it out by collecting as many as they could.
    Kyle Melvin, Riley Gonzales and Daniel Jimenez, fourth grade students and teammates on the fourth-grade Thunderhawks football team, organized the collection with some encouragement from their football coaches.
    Their plan was one that not many 9-year-olds would come up with on their own – collect pop tops to help a charity.
    After researching online, the three Turnberry students decided to start a contest at their school to see which class could come up with the most pop tops. Whichever class won would receive a doughnut party.
    One might think this a fundraiser based on soda and doughnuts was definitely student driven but the pop tops are actually part of a Ronald McDonald House Charity drive.
    According to the Ronald McDonald House website, the pop tab collections are a great way to teach kids about philanthropy and raise funds to help children and their families at the same time.
    Ronald McDonald Houses provide a “home away from home” for families of seriously ill children who are receiving treatment at nearby hospitals.
    The organization collects pop tabs instead of entire aluminum cans because it’s more hygienic to store, plus collection is easier.
    Once the students drop the pop tops off at the local Ronald McDonald House, staff from the house will bring the collection to a recycling center, where the pop tabs are weighed to determine their value – which can vary from 10 cents to 25 cents.
    The recycling center then sends the local RMHC chapter a check for the total.
    There are three Ronald McDonald Houses in Colorado, including one in Denver, Aurora and Colorado Springs.
    According to their website, pop tab programs have been known to raise as much as $30,000 a year.
    “We felt like we needed to help kids, family and the poor,” Melvin said. “This is for families who have sick or hurt kids at the hospital stay at the house for free.”
    Their goal was to fill two trash bags, and they were close. Altogether, the school filled one bag, which was still quite a bit of tabs.
    “I was even impressed we got that much,” Melvin said. “We did it through Super Bowl Sunday because people drink a lot of pop then.”
    The boys are pretty happy with the results, as they should be.
    “I think it’s wonderful,” said Turnberry Principal Brett Minne, who gave them permission to hold the pop top drive and gave them the freedom to organize and implement the contest.
    “You can see the kind of character they have,” he said. “They’re thinking about others at nine and 10-years-old. That’s pretty amazing.”
    “I think it will help a lot of people to get their lives straight and start moving on,” said Jimenez.
    “I feel proud of ourselves,” Melvin added.
    The trio ended their collection on Jan. 10 and worked over the weekend to make a poster with a graph showing how much was raised. They will determine which class collected the most and those students will receive a donut party.
    The students said, because their first attempt at a fundraiser went off without a hitch, they hope to conduct another one next year when they are fifth graders.

Contact Emily Dougherty at 303-659-2522 ext. 223 or edougherty@metrowestnewspapers.com.