by Tara Beverly

Eat cereal? Bake bread or cakes? Do you drink pop or juice from aluminum cans? If you do anything of these things, you can help local area schools and a national charity organization raise money. The Class of 2007 is sponsoring the Box Tops for Education campaign for the second year, and the Family Practice Club (FPC)/Student Association of the American College of Osteopathic Family Physicians, in conjunction with Mary Bonar, Class of 2008 president, and the Presidents Committee will be collecting pop-can tabs to support the Ronald McDonald House Charities.

Box tops are a part of dozens of participating General Mills products sold in grocery stores. The box tops that medical students collect will be given to a local Athens elementary school. Each box top is worth 10 cents for the school. Last year, more than 300 box tops were collected and given to River Valley Middle School. This year students are aiming to double that number. Gwyn Frambach, president of the Class of 2007, is very excited about the campaign.

“As I was campaigning for class president, I wanted to promote more community involvement by our class. I thought collecting box tops would be a great opportunity for our class to become involved in helping the community, as well as to promote our school and its connections with the community,” says Frambach.

“For me, osteopathic medicine is not about just helping patients in an office but also about benefiting the community at large.”

Box Tops for Education offers an easy way for people to earn cash for schools while buying groceries, shopping online or making purchases with a credit card. Those who participate in the program can help schools receive thousands of dollars each year. More than 82,000 K-8 schools are enrolled in the program.

At the college, clipped box tops can be placed in the yellow box in the Learning Resource Center in Grosvenor Hall. The campaign will run through spring quarter. Frambach is hoping everyone at OU-COM gets involved. Last year, as an incentive, she promoted a bit of friendly competition among students by offering to write a letter of commendation for the file of the student who collected the most box tops. The winner collected 100 box tops. This year Frambach plans to do the same thing.

While Frambach and her team are working to collect box tops, Bonar and the SAACOFP Chapter Presidents Committee will be collecting pop-can tabs to support the Ronald McDonald House Charities. Their effort is part of “Bones of Still,” a SAACOFP national service project.

Bonar was elected as president of her class in November and as a philanthropic project, she thought her class could help the Ronald McDonald House by collecting pop-can tabs. Bonar says that it seemed like a nice project, especially since students and staff drink a lot of pop at various events. Bonar has been a volunteer at the Ronald McDonald House in Columbus for the past four years.

Ronald McDonald House Charities create, find and support programs that directly improve the health and well being of children in order to better the lives of children and their families around the world. There are four main programs within the McDonald charities: The Ronald McDonald House, Ronald McDonald Care Mobile program, Ronald McDonald Family Rooms and the Ronald McDonald House Charities Scholarship Programs.

Ronald McDonald House also provides a “home-away-from-home” for families of seriously ill children who are receiving treatment at nearby hospitals.

According to Bonar it is very simple to support the charities’ mission.

“We are asking that students and staff put their pop-can tabs in the miniature Ronald McDonald Houses we have placed in Grosvenor, Irvine and the Learning Resource Center instead of disposing of them in the trash. The pop-can tabs will be given to the Columbus Ronald McDonald House,” says Bonar.

“When Tyree Winters, FPC president, heard about what we were doing, he asked if the club could be involved as well. We are in it together until this spring.”

The Ronald McDonald House in Columbus usually raises about $600 worth of aluminum tabs each month.

“Our goal is to help make the community a better place. We are confident that with the support of students and staff at the college, we will make this community service project a success.”

 For more information on the Box Tops for Education visit http://www.boxtops4education.com/pdfs/products.pdf; and for more information on the Ronald McDonald House Charities, please visit www.rmhc.com.

Students from these organizations urge you to participate. You can make a difference!