13000 Tabs For Raphael

Two years ago I decided to help our friends Denis and Therese collect can tabs for the benefit of their niece’s son, Raphael. Denis and Therese live in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, and have become friends here in the Rio Grande Valley.

Raphael has Cystic Fibrosis which makes doing many things we take for granted almost impossible for him. BUT, Raphael and his mom are not going to allow his condition to slow him down much. His mom, Annie, has become very active in the Cystic Fibrosis Assoc. taking an active role in fund raising as she helps Raphael in his ongoing battle.

For anyone dealing with Cystic Fibrosis breathing is a huge problem but technology is helping and the medical people have developed a breathing vest for patients. Wearing this vest allows them to breathe much easier and to finally do some of things we all do every minute of every day without a thought. The problem is they are extremely expensive and of course as these young people grow they need larger vests every two or three years. Through the Cystic Fibrosis Assoc. the vests a traded in, reconditioned and passed on, but even with that trade program the cost is prohibitive for the average family.

So who is Raphael? Permit me to introduce you to him.

This is Raphael, the beneficiary of our efforts.

When Raphaels’ mom found out about our collection efforts, last week, she sent the picture along with this message (translated.)

This is the picture of Raphael. He now plays in a hockey league and he is a very good player. He is so motivated and determined that is almost unbelievable. When I think that last March he could barely skate....

He is now one of the best players on his team. We are very proud of him. On this picture he received the trophy given to the first star of the game.
Thank you all for collecting the can tabs that we are still gathering. In school Raphael with his friends also collect them.
Annie (mother of Raphael)

The first summer (2010) we were able to collect a couple of pounds of tabs thanks to help from our kids, our Grandsons and a couple of our friends. We were working on the effort when I ran into some trouble and we had to leave Texas early.

Last spring we decided to take this to another level and set a goal to try and collect five pounds of tabs.  Since I had no idea what 5 lbs of tabs meant it seemed like a worthwhile goal and we got started.  About mid summer I realized that 5 lbs was going to be a whole big bunch of can tabs and started to think that maybe it was unattainable.  Thanks to a great family and super friends we achieved our goal.  In fact, thanks to our family and friends we shot past that goal by three pounds.  Last Monday we took Denis and Therese just over 8 lbs of tabs.

So what does 8 pounds of can tabs look like? Here is a picture.

Those are giant zip locks, bigger than they look.

It’s quite a few. Since I wasn’t about to try counting them I decided to weigh some and figure it out. There is no way to know for sure but within a couple of hundred, either way, there were 13,000 tabs in those bags.

Many many people got on board to help us and I want to try to thank them here. There is no doubt I will miss someone and if I’ve missed you please forgive me.

Special thanks first of all, to Grandsons Brendan and Cole. These two young fellows did a great job.  They got some help from their parents, their other Grandparents, their friends, and a hockey team and brought us a lot of can tabs. Our kids really helped out, thank you, Leslie, John, Colleen, Tim, Rob, Brenda, and Brady. My brother Rick sent us a big bag, thanks Rick. Sister Peg, nephew, Errant, thank you. And our friends, thank you so very much, Darcy (your family and staff), Elwood, Ken and Doreen (over 3000), George and Judy, Gary and Gloria, and many more.  Thank you all.

Therese, Bernie, Neal, Denis

(13000 tabs)

So now what? Since this isn’t something that allows us to say – job done, we have to get back to work. Raphael and others in his position need our help. One of our son in laws asked me one day why we don’t just give them some money and be done with it? It’s a really good question but collecting these tabs is different. It’s a way for a whole bunch of people to come together, for each of us to do something a bit different, and help out those less fortunate.  Take another look at that picture of Raphael.  Without your (our) help and the help of many others he would not have that "first star" medal, he is so proud of.

In that spirit I would ask you to please help us out this year. This year's goal is 10 pounds, about 20,000 tabs so we obviously need a lot of help. If you would like to help us, please leave me a comment here so I can get in touch with you.

To those of you that helped out in 2011 Thanks again, to those of you on board for 2012 thank you in advance. Your effort is appreciated.

As usual, thanks for stopping by and please do leave a comment when you can.

Neal and Bernie