(Shown in the photo are Yvonne Dzuba, left, and Group Homes executive director Colin Folk with resident Angela Cherney, with the boxes of pop can tabs.)
Several boxes, each filled with thousands of tabs from pop and beer cans, were donated on Friday to the Weyburn Group Homes Society, as part of a fundraiser started by a resident to help buy a new mechanical lift.
The pop can tabs were collected for the last two and a half years by Weyburn resident Yvonne Dzuba, and they were brought to a group home residence on Lorraine Street. The tabs will be cashed in at a recycler, with the proceeds to go towards buying a mechanical lift.
Colin Folk, executive director for the Weyburn Group Homes, explained that resident Cass Simpson had the idea to collect the tabs as a fundraiser as the building they use for day programs, on Water Street, is not wheelchair accessible on the second floor.
“There’s no lift, and we can’t get a permit to build a ramp, because it would go out to the street, so we have to buy a mechanical lift for it,” said Folk, adding they have 10 people in the day program currently who use the building at different times.
“Because we don’t have a day program building, we converted an apartment suite to use for the day program,” he said, noting there are a total of 77 residents in the Group Homes currently, with a number of them accessing the Wor-Kin Shop facility for day programs.
Dzuba noted she used to collect the pop can tabs for the Canadian Cancer Society, but they haven’t been accepting them the last couple of years. A friend of hers, Heather Fellner, called and suggested that she donate them towards this fundraiser at the Group Homes, and Dzuba was happy to do that, so they can go to a local need.
She has friends and family collecting them and sending them to her from B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, including from in Weyburn, and over the last two and a half years, she accumulated eight boxes filled with them.
“I have a box full coming from Alberta,” she added, noting she had to sort them and bag them, taking out the coloured tabs from the regular ones, as the recycler won’t want them all combined.
Folk admitted he never takes the tabs off, and didn’t know they could be collected and recycled in this way.
He said the lift isn’t cheap, costing around $6,000, plus there will be a maintenance cost of around $125 a month once it’s installed.
Dzuba noted she wouldn’t have known about this fundraiser had her friend not called her and told her about it.
“We’ve had other people who wanted to donate cash to the cause, so it’s all good,” said Folk. “I appreciate you thinking of us.”
