Even though a student at Cochrane Christian Academy (CCA) successfully completed his mission to collect over 100,000 pop can tabs to help raise money for a good cause, he plans to continue collecting them despite surpassing his initial target.
As of writing, Grade 3 CCA student Rider Degraw’s ever-growing collection of pop can tabs had reached a total of 226,396 tabs.
Although his first deadline for his unorthodox fundraiser was originally planned for Feb. 13, he now plans to keep collecting tabs until the end of June, with the dream of reaching a million aluminum pop can tabs.
Since his first interview with The Eagle three weeks ago, Degraw has received two massive donations to support his cause – raising enough money to pay for two wheelchairs, which he would donate to kids who needed them. The first donation was a lawn bag filled to the brim with tabs from the Town of Cochrane, and the second came from the Calgary Police Service, which contributed around 14,000 tabs.
Students at CCA have also been hard at work collecting tabs to support their classmate’s efforts. Degraw said one class in particular contributed a significant amount, which netted them a prize for their work.
“Ms. Madore’s Grade 1 class won the popcorn party,” Degraw said.
A major player behind the scenes of the class was Degraw’s brother Sam, who helped them collect 72,660 tabs. Sam said he has fun collecting tabs for his older brother and often helps weighing them whenever he can.
Child development advisor for Cochrane Christian Academy Michelle Kachur said although there are additional plans for competitions to help students collect more pop can tabs this school year, there has been an overwhelming support from the community both in and outside of Cochrane.
“People are sending them from out of town, to their grandkids in the mail, and it’s pretty cool,” Kachur said.
Rider and Sam’s dad, Andy Degraw, said he is proud to see his boys working towards a goal and seeing the support from the community.
“Everybody is doing their part,” Andy said. “I think for anybody that’s put the word out, there’s a lot of tabs coming into Cochrane.”
Andy would also like anyone who is interested to contribute to know that any form of aluminum top is accepted. Although many donate what they can, Andy said tin tops and tabs often get mixed in, which unfortunately they cannot accept as part of their total count.
A good way for possible donors to test if their tabs or tops are suitable for donation is to check if they are magnetic. Aluminum tabs and tops are not magnetic, while those made of tin and other metals are.
Although Rider is at a loss for words when it comes to thanking the community, he reiterated he is grateful for the support.
With the Degraws figuratively swimming in the amount of pop can tabs they have already collected, Rider added that he eventually hopes to be able to fill a swimming pool with all the tabs that he collects.
