By Liz King
Staff Writer
—
SALISBURY — Just over a year ago, 11-year-old Kendall Mitchell was watching the reality show "Extreme Makeover" and saw a teenage boy who was collecting pull-tabs from cans to raise money for children at Shriners Hospitals. He'd even redone his whole room in pull-tabs.
The program showed how the boy went to the hospital and met the patients whom all his collections helped.
"She was so moved by that," her mother, Sue Mitchell, said. "She looked at my husband and I, and said 'Mommy, I can do this; I want to make a difference.' She saw the change he made by something so simple."
Yesterday, Jeanne McCue, a representative of the Shriners Hospitals for Children, visited Kendall, who had 95 pounds of pull-tabs from aluminum cans to donate. The money raised from recycling the tops will benefit young burn victims at Shriners Hospitals.
To kick-start her collection, Kendall began by canvassing neighborhood mailboxes with letters about her pull-tab drive and went around every month to collect her neighbors' soda can pull-tabs, or "flip-tops."
"Every once in a while, we found a baggy of flip-tops in the mailbox," Mitchell said.
Kendall also enlisted the help of her grandfather, Al Fisher, who collected tops at the Hilton Senior Center in Salisbury.
"When my dad pulled up in the driveway and kept taking five-gallon buckets out, we were in awe," Mitchell said.
It was at the Senior Center's Green Fair that seventh-grade Triton Regional High School science teacher Ray Whitley saw the collection.
"His students have been collecting flip-tops for about three years. He had a cooler in the shape of a Coca Cola bottle and started collecting them, figuring it was something fun for kids to do and a great way to help go green," Mitchell said. "When he saw the opportunity at the Green Fair to drop them off, he pulled up with a car full."
Kendall said she only expected to get "a bucket full" of pull-tabs, but because of the kindness of the community, Ray Whitley and his students, as well as family and friends, she was able to exceed that goal. Kendall's total collection of 95 pounds of pull-tabs weighs more than she does.
"She never gave up. She said, 'I'm going to keep doing it,'" Mitchell said. "I didn't think she'd do it as quickly as she did."
Shriners collects the soda can tabs, which are the only pure aluminum part of the can, and volunteers wash them and recycle them for 60 cents per pound, McCue said. There are approximately 1,200 to 1,400 tabs in one pound. Kendall's collection of tabs will bring about $570 to the hospital, McCue said.
"It's so amazing to see what little pull-tabs and the efforts of one girl can do," McCue said. "It directly enhances the lives of these children with burns."
The money raised from pull-tabs nets about $4,000 to $5,000 a year and is used for nonmedical items at the hospital, which specializes in burn care, McCue said. It could be used for computer software for therapeutic services, games, arts and crafts materials, books, videos and playroom equipment. Recently, money was used for two daybeds for family members staying with a child who is a patient.
"I hope the kids get what they want," Kendall said.
Kendall said she's always liked helping people — as a Girl Scout, she was taught to do community service and loved to participate in the group's Sept. 11 memorial spaghetti dinner. She said her mother always instilled in her and her 16-year-old brother, Sean, a drive to help in the community.
Every year around Thanksgiving, the siblings go around the neighborhood with a wheelbarrow to collect canned goods for Pettengill House; they also go to senior centers and decorate cookies or sing Christmas carols, and they participate in park cleanups in Salisbury, Mitchell said.
"It's always better to give than receive — that's what I've taught them," Mitchell said.
Kendall, who does Tae Kwon Do, said the pull-tab collection will be used as a community service goal for her black belt.
Kendall said she will keep collecting the tabs, as will Whitley and his students. Donations can be dropped off at the Hilton Senior Center.
While helping their mother collect Kendall's boxes and bags of pull-tabs yesterday morning, McCue's children said they wanted to help, too — they've already collected four pull-tabs.
"It's so amazing how we can help children by just collecting the flip-top off a Coke can," Mitchell said. "It's something simple that kids can do."
