Dennis Harwood says a fundraising initiative is gaining a lot of momentum locally.
For the past few years the North Bay Rorab Shrine Club has been collecting tabs from beer and pop cans.
“About four years ago I was bartending and I was taking the tabs off the pop cans behind the bar at the Shrine Club,” recalled Harwood.
Harwood found out that another Shrine Club member had been collecting the tabs to go towards the purchase of a wheelchair for his grandson who suffered from Muscular Dystrophy.
Since then the local Shriners have been doing the collecting themselves for the cause. What started out at 700 pounds a few years ago has grown to over 2,000 pounds by the end of 2018.
“The tabs go to the March of Dimes and how that works is we donate to the March of Dimes,” explained Harwood.
“They match it and they put it in their fund and the government matches whatever they put in so $2,000 dollars worth of tabs may turn out to be worth about $20,000 by the time you are done.”
Harwood says their Facebook page has played a huge part in attracting tab donations.
“What we have done is we have put it on our facebook page and we had a lady from Trout Creek come in and drop off a bunch of tabs and she called me about three days later, her sister out in Edmonton saw it and she brought a big box with her a few months later,” recalled Harwood.
He says they have also received donations from as far away as Cuba, Arizona and Florida.
While its early still, Harwood estimates they are already at 500 pounds for 2019. Anyone interested in donating tabs can drop them off at the North Bay Rorab Shrine Club or at Harwood Plumbing during business hours.