Youngster starts tab drive to help Ronald McDonald houses

by Phyllis Larabie
Genna Carmichael is eleven years old and wants to do something to help Ronald McDonald houses.
Her two year old brother Myles has been diagnosed with Juvenile Arthritis, also known as JIA. In his short life span Myles has had three very serious bouts with pneumonia due to the arthritis medications that suppress his immune system.
December of 2016 was his last hospitalization. In February of this year he has been weened off one of those medications. He has been very healthy since then and his mom states, “to see him in action it is impossible to detect any effects of the JIA.”
Genna has been wanting to do a tab drive to benefit the Ronald McDonald House in Burlington, Vermont and Albanywhere her little brother Myles, has been admitted to one or the other hospital several times since he was born. 
Genna and Myles are the children of Dawn and Geoff Carmichael of Tupper Lake.
The Carmichael family have not ever had to stay at the Ronald McDonald Houses but have had to use the Ronald McDonald rooms that are at the hospitals. The family members say, “the staff there are truly amazing people and are very helpful and accommodating”.
The funds Genna raises will help support families that stay at the Ronald McDonald House by providing meals and items for families, assistance in emergencies, and giving families special moments, like small gifts for children if they have a birthday while at the house.
Genna has placed flyers around town but hasn't gotten much of a response and would love for her community to help her out. The community can help Genna by collecting and saving the pull tabs off aluminum cans, the pieces of metal that open aluminum cans, the tabs like the cans are recyclable. The pull tabs are brought to a recycling center where they are weighed and redeemed for cash per pound. It takes 1,267 pull-tabs to make one pound. In 2016 the pull tab program raised more than $6,100 in recycling revenue.
One hundred percent of the dollars raised are put into a direct operations of the charity. All the money raised provides a home-away-from-home for the families during the medical treatment of their ill children.
People are encouraged to donate their pull tabs from soda cans, tennis ball cans, soup cans, pet food cans, juice cans, and anything else that has a pull tab. Remember it is not the entire lid from the soup cans or pet food cans it is just the tab that pulls the can open.
Genna's aunt, Pam Brickey, is establishing a drop off on her front porch at 24 Pleasant Ave. People can drop off bags or containers there.
They would also like to ask that our out of town readers research the Ronald McDonald House Charities to see how they can help them out in their own areas, as they are a very worthy charity that provides much needed support to families with very sick children, many of whom are unplanned or unexpected hospitalizations that are often times far from there homes.