FUTURE WHEELCHAIRS
Northside students collect pop can tabs for a good cause.
Alfred and Jean Landry couldn’t believe their eyes when they walked into Ferrisview Elementary School on Monday.
The Landrys visited the North Sydney school to collect aluminum can tabs for their grandson Daniel Arsenault, 17, of Trenton, Pictou County, who was diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy when he was four years old.
Arsenault, who because of the disease must use a wheelchair, collects the tabs to raise money to provide wheelchairs to children in need across the province.
The Landrys expected to collect a few hundred tabs, but never expected what they saw on Monday. The students and staff had collected more than 25,000 tabs from September until June.
“It warms my heart, it makes me cry when I think about how wonderful people are, it’s just amazing,” said Jean Landry.
The program started at the school a number of years ago.
Landry credits Janet Wilkie, a teacher assistant at the school, for continuing the tab program each year.
“The first time she collected tabs there were a couple of little bags, but I can’t believe how many they collected this year,” said Landry with a tear in her eye. “They even had a large aquarium-sized box made just for the tabs and it’s pretty much full which is amazing.
“Every year they collect more and more, words can’t describe how happy we are,” said Landry.
John Boutilier, principal of Ferrisview Elementary School, said this year’s tab collection was extremely successful. “It’s an important cause to our school because it brings the students together,” said Boutilier. “When the students go by (the box full of tabs) they run their hands through the tabs and they wonder what it’s all about, so they are learning a good social story here, something they throw away is a value to someone else.”
The school isn’t the only place in North Sydney collecting tabs for Arsenault. Tab boxes are also set up at other schools,
“They get 70 cents a pound for them. When they sell them they put it into an account and when somebody needs a wheelchair the money is there for them.”
Jean Landry
churches and at the food bank.
Once collected, the tabs are taken to Trenton where Arsenault and his parents, Kenny and Lynn Arsenault, both originally from the Northside, will sell the tabs. The tabs will then be melted down in New Glasgow in order to make wheelchairs.
“They get 70 cents a pound for them,” said Landry. “When
they sell them they put it into an account and when somebody needs a wheelchair the money is there for them.”
Duchenne muscular dystrophy is a severe type of the condition. Muscle weakness usually begins around age four in boys and quickly worsens. Typically muscle loss occurs first in the upper legs and pelvis followed by the upper arms.
“Daniel is increasingly getting worse, slowing down,” said Landry. “We’re praying and hoping that some day they might find a cure for him, but he spends his life in the wheelchair, he goes to school on the handi-bus, but he’s happy and never complains.”
Landry said the program has
provided a number of people with wheelchairs, however she was unsure how many.
“Seeing these people who are in need of a wheelchaair finally get one, it means so much to us,” she said. “I want to thank everyone from the bottom of my heart for donating tabs, I just can’t believe what people do, people are very kind and to get the children to do this for Daniel, it means so much.”
With the help of students, the Landrys packed their vehicle with the tabs on Monday. Jean Landry said her daughter will be visiting the island next week and will take the tabs back home with her.