It was then that the class put a bucket
at the front of the school and began collecting
pop tabs to donate to the Ronald
McDonald House in Memphis. Shortly
after they started collecting, the class
realized they were going to need a bigger
bucket thanks, in part, to sixth-grader
Clayton Pruitt.
After his class was tasked with collecting
as many pop tabs as possible, Clayton
recalled that his grandpa had been collecting
pop tabs for as long as he could
remember.
“My grandpa had a friend who had diabetes.
He would collect the pop tabs and
recycle them and donate the money to
charities for kids with diabetes,” Clayton
said.
But when his grandpa’s friend passed
away around four years ago, he began to
let his pop tab collection build up. That
is, until Clayton explained what his class
was doing at school. After hearing why he
needed the pop tabs, Clayton’s grandpa
donated his entire collection to his grandson’s
class.
But the donations didn’t stop there.
Sixth-grade student Eli Wachob found
out his family would be going on a
vacation to Memphis, so he offered
to deliver the pop tabs his school
had collected. Being able to
deliver the pop tabs personally
was even more special for Eli because
the Ronald McDonald House
helped one of his friends who
had cancer.
The experience came full
circle for Eli when he and
his cousin dumped the
tabs his class collected
into the container for
pop tab donations at
the Ronald McDonald
House in Memphis.
“It went from about
one-eighth full to
about three-fourths
full,” Eli said. “It felt
good to make that big
of a difference!”
After delivering this
collection of pop tabs to
the Memphis location, the
class plans to continue collecting
throughout the year and donate
the next batch to the Springfi eld Ronald
McDonald House Charities location.
Students bag up the
pop tabs the school
collected before Eli
Wachob, above, and
his family deliver
them to the Ronald
McDonald House in
Memphis.
16 THE NEST NIXA PUBLIC SCHOOLS MAGAZINE FALL 2017