Throughout the entire month of September, students in the Dental Assistant program at Ross Medical Education Center in New Baltimore, Michigan, worked together to benefit their community. In order to make a major impact, they teamed up with Ronald McDonald House Charities. Since 1974, Ronald McDonald House has been helping create a “home away-from-home” atmosphere for parents and children.
The mission of Ronald McDonald House is to “keep families with sick children close to each other and provide the care and resources they need.” The dental assistant students were very enthusiastic about helping this organization to achieve their mission. First, they began by informing the classes in the other training programs: Medical Assistant program, Medical Insurance Billing and Office Administration program, and Veterinary Assistant program.
According to the Ronald McDonald House Charities website, collecting pop tabs is a fun and easy way to help out. It contributes to recycling efforts as well as provides funds to a great organization. The reason that only the tab is collected is that it is actually pure aluminum unlike the rest of the can. Because of this and the fact that they are small and easy to collect, they are a great item to gather and donate.
They wanted to get everyone excited about participating in the September Pop Tab Drive for Ronald McDonald House. They created and decorated containers and placed them all around the campus for students and staff to easily add their tab donations. To really inspire the students and other staff and faculty to get the campus engaged in this event, Dental Assistant Lead Instructor Noreen Bishoff brought in several cases of pop cans.
The dental assistant students then polished their public speaking techniques, explaining how Ronald McDonald House helps families, as they passed out beverages to students on campus – literally giving them their first pop can tab to donate! Throughout their efforts, a total of 16.5 lbs of pop can tabs were able to be donated for this very worthy endeavor. The campus is very proud of their students and their hard work as they understand the importance of helping others.