Keeping tabs

Big Scoop Family Restaurant co-owner Angie Cress hates to see a pop can tab go to waste.

In 25 years with the Big Scoop, Cress has watched the community rally together time and time again to help the Wilmot-based restaurant collect pop can tabs that will eventually be used to purchase a wheelchair for someone in need.

“We’ve done it ever since I can remember,” said Cress, who stressed that support from customers makes the campaign as successful as it is.

“One little guy comes in and he’ll say: ‘There’s 1,430.’ He counts them all.”

Volunteers Bruce Woodworth and Brian Neville visited the Big Scoop Sept. 14 to collect more than 48 large buckets of tabs that will be sold as scrap metal in Halifax. The money will be used to purchase a wheelchair that will be donated to the Middleton & District Lions Club.

Both Neville and Woodworth brought tabs to add to the impressive collection that filled the back of a truck and a utility trailer.

Neville collects tabs at his Sun Life Financial office in Middleton, at home, at social events and on trips. He says local 4-H members also brought in six feed bags full of tabs to support the campaign.

“It costs nothing and it gives you such a good feeling,” said Neville. “It only takes a few minutes to take the tabs off of the cans.”