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POINT PLEASANT — Try imagining 70,000 anything. Now, try imagining collecting 70,000 pop tabs.

Students at Roosevelt Elementary recently did just that and all to benefit the Ronald McDonald House.

Not only were the pop tabs collected but counted. In fact, Becky Haer’s third grade classroom used the pop tabs as a prop for a lesson in Mathematics. Haer said students grouped the tabs by 10’s, then 100’s, etc. There were plenty of pop tabs for the third graders to count seeing as the class brought in a whopping 10,000-plus, making them one of the top contributors in the school.

The idea to collect the tabs came from Brittany Sayre of Point Pleasant who is a former student and daughter of current kindergarten teacher, Susan Sayre. Brittany volunteers at the school for different events and asked the teachers if they’d want to get involved with the pop tab project. Once the word got out, Brittany said an “insane amount of pop tabs” had been collected by students.

As for why the Ronald McDonald House was chosen to support, Brittany said she’d had family who had utilized and was pleased with the organization which provides a home away from home for families with sick children. Brittany said in her experience, the Ronald McDonald House provided that special place for families to stay but that costs money and with the demand for services so high she decided to become involved with raising funds - and the students at Roosevelt responded to her idea.

According to Ronald McDonald House charities, collecting pop tabs is a great way to teach kids about philanthropy and the importance of recycling, and raise funds to help children and their families at the same time. Some chapters raise thousands of dollars with their pop tab collections.

The Ronald McDonald Houses collects pop tabs instead of entire aluminum cans because it’s more hygienic to store tabs than cans, and collection and storage is easier. The program is an easy way for people of all ages to support the charity and know they are making a difference for families and children.

After the tabs are collected, the local Ronald McDonald House Charity Chapter brings the collection to local recycling centers, where they are weighed to determine their value (values can vary significantly). The recycling center then sends the local Ronald McDonald House Charity Chapter a check for the total value.

Brittany was to deliver the pop tabs to the Huntington Ronald McDonald House, keeping those recycling dollars local to benefit local families.