Student-Athletes Collected Thousands of Pop Tabs

SPARTANBURG, S.C. - The Southern Conference Student-Athlete Advisory Committees (SAAC) have been engaged in a competition this season by collecting pop tabs for the Ronald McDonald Houses across the Southern Conference, and Western Carolina's SAAC was recently recognized for collecting the most tabs.

The Catamounts', led by group president Chris Everett, collected more than 182,000 tabs that will be donated to a local chapter of the Ronald McDonald House Charities.

After the tabs are collected, the local RMHC 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 RMHC Chapter a check for the total value.

"We are thrilled with the participation our schools have with this program," said Southern Conference Associate Commissioner Sue Arakas. "This is a good way for our schools to give back to the community as a conference SAAC and to benefits the lives of many children."

More than 600,000 pop tabs were collected from the SoCon member institutions. After Western Carolina's winning total of 182,264, Elon collected the second-highest total with 135,120, followed by Wofford with 107,278. The SoCon "Keeping Tabs on Kids" program was created in an effort to unite the conference SAAC's under one project. With Ronald McDonald houses in all four states, each school will get to enjoy the effort put forth during the year.

The SoCon SAAC agreed that participating in the pop tab collection for the Ronald McDonald House was a way to encourage maximum participation from the greatest number of student athletes across member campuses.

For more information about the Ronald McDonald House Charities and its pop tabs program, visit RMHC.org.