SEQUIM – When Sam Manders and his mother, Kathrin Sumpter, paid a visit to Lindsay Dance’s house in Portland, Ore., they thought they’d do her a favor and make a Costco run.
Bring on the peanut butter and jelly and soups, a grateful Dance said when asked what she needed.
Dance is assistant house manager at Portland’s Ronald McDonald House, where mothers, fathers and siblings stay while their loved ones are in nearby Doernbecher Children’s Hospital or the Shriners Hospital for Children.
Sam, 13, and Sumpter delivered the goods — which they donated — along with 361,419 pull-tabs from soda and soup cans, on May 29.
The haul weighed 213.1 pounds, Sumpter said, and yes, she was glad to see those bags go.
Broke record
Sam has been accumulating the pull-tabs in his garage in Sequim over the past year, with his heart set on breaking his 2008 record of 265,477.
And with help from friends, he outdid himself, surpassing last year by 95,942 tops.
Sam is marking his fifth year as a volunteer for the Ronald McDonald House Pull-Tab Program, which raises money by selling the tops to recyclers for 25 to 50 cents a pound.
He would have taken the tops to the Ronald McDonald House in Seattle, but Sumpter said it doesn’t participate in the collection program.
His pounds of pull-tabs help the house waive or reduce the $20-per-night fee for families who stay at the Portland house.
Sam and his mother have been a pull-tab-seeking team since he was a third-grader.
That was when Sam’s father, Jim Manders — a former Peninsula Daily News editor in several capacities — died of throat cancer at age 58.
When Sam learned about the pull-tab program, he became a young man on a mission, Sumpter recalled.
“I thought, ‘This is a positive outlet,'” she said. Four years later, “he’s gung ho, and I’m gung ho.”
What keeps Sam on the tops, amidst all the other things going on in a 13-year-old’s life?
“I’m just trying to break my record — and thinking of all those kids,” he said. “Those families are going through hard times.”
Sam remembers what it was like to have a loved one with a serious illness.
“The thought of my dad,” he said, “keeps me going.”
Sumpter said that community members can join her son’s effort by saving their pull-tabs and adding them to his collection for next year.
For details, phone 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.
