Those tabs can be a lifesaver

By Jeannie O’Sullivan
Times Staff Writer

Riddle: What do grandparents in Florida and a Harley Davidson manufacturer in York, Pa., have in common?
Answer: a penchant for hoarding can tabs, and not just because Southerners and bikers like beer.
Scores of companies, individuals and organizations lining the East Coast have joined the tab-collection effort, which started five years ago in a fifth-grade classroom at the Immanuel Lutheran School in Burholme.
Before she released them for summer vacation in 2000, teacher Betsy Ulmer encouraged her fifth-grade students to "Pull One for Vinnie" each time they enjoyed a cool drink.
Vinnie Imbrenda, 5, died in August 1999, following a three-year battle with neuroblastoma, a nerve cancer that primarily affects small children and babies. It is the same illness that claimed the life of Alex Scott, the 8-year-old founder of the fund-raising Alex’s Lemonade Stand for Pediatric Cancer Research.
The aluminum tabs get recycled to raise money for the oncology research division at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP).
The tally has just surpassed 3 million tabs, which generated about $850.
"Any number you give us, we’ll reach," said Ulmer.
Ulmer knew Vinnie’s family from the Rhawnhurst Presbyterian Church, where they are all members.
"Pull One for Vinnie" started as a math lesson in benchmark quantities. For instance, a one-pound kitchen storage bag holds 4,358 tabs when full.
Fifth-grader Eric White has collected 10,000 tabs in honor of both Vinnie and White’s great uncle, who died of leukemia.
"This helps their spirits live on," said Eric.
Like her schoolmate, student Charlene Graver’s resolve also is bolstered by the loss of loved ones.
"Knowing my father and grandfather died of diseases, I can definitely relate to the importance of research," the fifth-grader said.
News of the tab campaign spread like a wave, rippling to relatives, friends, co-workers and acquaintances near and far. Bags of tabs arrive at the school regularly from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware and Florida.
Immanuel Lutheran school board president Ellen Kiefer passed the idea on to relatives in Maryland, and now a classic-car club and a group of waitresses are collecting tabs.
In one case, another relative is collecting cans for a stroke victim who pulls tabs to exercise his hands.
"He gets the therapy, we get the tabs," said Kiefer.
In Philadelphia, St. Joseph’s University students, a Frankford Hospital nurses unit and a local Knights of Pythias chapter are just a few of the groups that have gotten into it.
Ulmer started charting the contributions on a huge drawing of a thermometer whose "mercury" climbs higher with each bag of tabs that is received. It hangs in the lobby so the entire school can view the progress.
They’ve processed more than 757 bags, or 2,271 pounds — equal to the weight of a Toyota MR2, said Vinnie’s grandfather, Bob Kerr.
Each week, Kerr comes to the school to collect the bags and take them to Dunn M. Recycling Inc. He deemed the student fund-raisers the "Immanuel School Mustangs," and bought every student a T-shirt imprinted with the moniker.
When his grandson was diagnosed, Kerr started a journal he calls The Tale of Topoticen — a bittersweet chronicle of Vinnie’s bold but futile battle.
Topoticen cytoxan is a drug used to treat neuroblastoma. "It extended his time with us," said Kerr.
While he was sick, Vinnie impressed everyone with his spirit. He smiled through grueling treatments in St. Christopher’s Hospital, where he was the first stem-cell patient, and later at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where he was treated by Dr. John Maris, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania.
"He was always making the nurses laugh," said Vinnie’s mom, Andrea Pagano.
Even Vinnie’s rare bad days yielded inadvertent humor.
"You butthead!" the tyke once cried painfully to a startled physician.
The tale amused and touched Ulmer enough to write several short stories about a character named Butthead the Dragon. The other characters’ names were loosely based on Vinnie’s family members.
Ulmer bound the stories and gave the booklet to Vinnie in the hospital.
"He knew they were just for him," said Ulmer. ••
"Pull One for Vinnie" tabs can be dropped off at the Immanuel Lutheran School, 1015 Cottman Ave.
Jeannie O’Sullivan can be reached at 215-354-3038 or osullivanj@phillynews.com