Pull tab princess

For the past three years, Jenna Dunbar has been obsessed with aluminum pull tabs. In fact, she’s officially a Pull Tab Princess.

The West Valley High School junior has been collecting the metal tabs to raise money for Ronald McDonald House, a program that provides temporary lodging for families while their children receive medical attention.

Thus far she’s collected nearly 1.4 million pull tabs, putting her halfway to her goal of amassing a ton of the little metal flaps that help open soda cans, pet food tins, sardine cans, fuel additive cans …

Let’s just say they’re everywhere.

“I don’t like to call them pop tops,” Dunbar laughs. “They’re on pop cans, sure, but they’re on so many other things, too. I got the tennis teams at West Valley to save the pull tabs off of all their tennis balls this year.”

At a luncheon ceremony last Saturday at Longhorn Barbecue, Dunbar was recognized for all her hard work, with the fruits of her labors on display in a rough-hewn box 6 feet long, 3 feet deep and 3 feet high filled to the brim with aluminum pull tabs of all colors.

Representatives from Spokane’s Ronald McDonald House were on hand, as well as representatives from many area Kiwanis Clubs, Dunbar’s partner in the collection drive.

Dunbar, wearing a red T-shirt adorned with a starburst pattern made out of multicolored pull tabs and a pair of pull-tab earrings, was feted for her tireless work on behalf of the children’s charity. Julius “Red” Weiler, from the West Valley Kiwanis Club, presented with her own tiara made with, you guessed it, pull tabs.

Grant Dunbar, Jenna’s father, explained to the assembly that this three-year fundraising effort is something totally in keeping with his daughter’s character. He related an anecdote about how she saved her allowance when she was in grade school so she could purchase school supplies for an unpopular fellow student who couldn’t afford to buy them for himself.

“I used to be a commercial fisherman and I became a father kind of late, and I have to say that my two daughters changed my life,” he said. “My oldest daughter has an incredible, adventurous spirit. I still remember riding roller coasters at Silverwood with her. She’d say to me ‘Okay, Dad, let’s do it again and this time, let’s see if you can keep from screaming.

“With Jenna, she’s always seen the rainbows instead of the rain. Knowing Jenna has made me a better person.”

Jenna doesn’t talk openly about why she embarked on this fundraising effort.

“Let’s just say that there’s a special person in my life who has had to use Ronald McDonald House,” she says. “When I saw what they were able to do there to help families when they really need the help, I wanted to do something. I found out about their pull tab program and I started collecting to help raise money for them.

“I figured that, since I couldn’t help with the illness, I could at least help families be able to stay near their children when they really need to be.”

It took Dunbar three years to reach her initial goal of amassing one million pull tabs, a goal she reached in January when she joined forces with the area’s Kiwanis Clubs.

“My first goal was to collect a million,” she said. “I started out at home by going to Yoke’s and Albertsons and to my school district. I did that for the first two years.

“My friend’s grandma is in the Kiwanis Club and they contacted me because they’d collected a million tabs before. We joined forces and that’s when it really started shooting off. That’s when we got all fire houses set up as drop-off points. That’s when we got fish tanks in all the school districts and we got class competitions going on. Everywhere you can think of has something going on.”

Dunbar reached her initial goal in January, at which point she decided to up the ante. She’s now working her way toward collecting 2.873 million tabs, which weighs in at a solid ton. And she’s gained a level of celebrity in the community.

“Since I’ve been doing this I’ve had people stop me in the halls at school or while I’m off doing something,” she said. “They’ll say ‘Oh, you’re the pop top girl – tell me what you’re doing, I want to help.’ I’m more than happy to tell them what I’m doing.”

And she’s done a good deal of educating on recycling.

“Surprisingly, most of the weight is in the tab,” she said. “And it’s almost solid aluminum. People look at me funny when I tell them that, so I have to explain about how the tab is made of aluminum and how there’s other stuff in the can part.”

Jenna is quick to point out that celebrity is not what she set out to achieve.

“I don’t do this for the fame,” she insists. “I could care less if my name is mentioned or not. I’m doing this for Ronald McDonald House – that’s what I care about. Becoming a spokesperson wasn’t what I started out to do. But they started printing up posters for me and things like that, and that’s what kind of made me a spokesperson for them.

“It’s nice that they’re giving me this publicity, but it’s not what I started out to do and really, it’s kind of shocking that it’s gotten this big.”

Jenna said she doesn’t plan to stop at a ton. She plans to make this effort her senior project at West Valley. After that, she’d like to find someone willing to take on the effort.

“The whole project is in place and the tabs keep coming in,” she said. “I would like to find someone willing to take this over when I go off to college – someone who is as dedicated to helping out the families at Ronald McDonald House as I am.”