Aluminum Can Tabs (Pop Tops) Wanted
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Please continue to save and drop off your aluminum can tabs/pull tabs/pop tops for polytrauma units at veteran hospitals. The money goes to take disabled veterans on field trips away from the hospitals. There is a box in the bar area for the donations. If you don’t see it, please ask a bartender. Thanks.
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Vietnam veteran Greg Tomberlin is the creator and administrator of the program.
The Springfield Armory in Gensco, Illinois, heard about this effort and sent 46 pounds of pop tops in 2025.
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July 8, 2025: Jean Rhall and John McGlade from Sydney Center New York discovered, via this website, that we are collecting pop tops to help veterans. They shipped us a whopping 3900 pop top tabs. Many Thanks!! Every tab helps.
(l-r) Brainerd VFW Junior Vice Commander Darnell King and Commander Kevin Jensen are seen here adding the tabs to the collection box.
April 18, 2022: Brainerd VFW collected aluminum can tabs that resulted in a $1,746 donation to the polytrauma unit in the Twin Cities. Keep saving tabs for the next donation.
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Please remove aluminum can tabs and put them in the box that 17-year-old Gillian Middagh built as an Eagle Scout project in 2023. Save and bring in tabs from your home too. Thank You.
There is a trailer for pop cans on the east side of the VFW building. It is a Cub Scout Pack #36 project. The Pack is sponsored by this VFW post.
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4th of July parade in 2018
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March 6, 2024:
Pierz Pioneers Pop Tops for Vets |
PIERZ — “Thankful, thankful, thankful.”
That’s how Greg Tomberlin said he felt after visiting Pioneer Elementary School in Pierz Wednesday, March 6.
The reaction came from leaving the school with 575 pounds of pop tabs. That’s close to a million tabs Tomberlin added to his already massive collection of 3 tons.
“We started out about 10 years ago with one barrel,” he said. “... Ten barrels we’re trying for this year.”
Each barrel weighs 150 pounds and contains roughly 255,000 pop tabs. Tomberlin’s collection began about 10 years ago with a fundraiser for the American Diabetes Association through the Walter P. Chrysler Car Club, to which he belongs. The group decided they wanted another fundraiser, turning their sights to the Minneapolis Polytrauma Rehabilitation Center, which provides in-patient rehabilitative care to veterans and active duty service members with multiple injuries. As an Army veteran who served in the Vietnam War, Tomberlin felt a connection to the program.
They decided their fundraiser would consist of collecting pop tabs.
“That first year we had a 5-quart ice cream bucket full for 42 members,” he said. “... I said, ‘Let’s fill a 55-gallon barrel next year.’ And I got some funny looks and some real laughs and everything else, but we did it. We did it, and we’ve added one barrel every year now, except for COVID. It took us two years during the COVID situation.” The first year of the fundraiser, Tomberlin took the pop tabs to a recycling facility in Monticello, which matched them and paid out 92 cents per tab. The next year, that facility had closed down, and the price for the tabs dropped to around 40 cents. Tomberlin continued collecting them, though, taking money out of his own pocket to donate in the amount he estimates is equivalent to the tabs collected, with the intent of finding a place to cash them in eventually.
Last year’s amount was $2,850, and he expects it to increase significantly this year, thanks in part to students at Pioneer Elementary School.
When deciding on a spring fundraiser this year, Student Council Adviser Tiffanie Quinlan said her fifth and sixth grade students voted to collect pop tabs and donate them to Tomberlin’s initiative, Pop Tops for Veterans. It’s an organization they had donated to in the past, but this year’s collection was much larger, as Quinlan and fellow Student Council Adviser Lisa Talberg decided to add a competition component. The grade that collected the most pop tabs would win a rootbeer float party. I don’t even know how it happened, but I’m thankful that it did.
Greg Tomberlin “We didn’t expect this many,” Quinlan said Wednesday, while gesturing to the plastic containers filled to the brim with pop tabs. The chosen charity was unbeknownst to Tomberlin until he walked into the school one day for an event of his grandson’s and saw the bins with the Pop Tabs for Vets logo on them.
“We seen them there, and I went, ‘Wow,’” he said. It’s the biggest collection Tomberlin has garnered from one project in his decade of collecting pop tabs.
Student Council kids were excited to know they contributed so much to Tomberlin’s efforts as they helped lug the containers out to his car Wednesday. A couple said the fundraiser was even a way to convince their parents to buy pop.
Competition was close among the grades, and Quinlan plans to announce the winners at school on Monday.
Tomberlin, who lives north of Pierz, and wife Sherry Tomberlin pick up pop tabs from all over the community throughout the year, partnering with various local businesses and organizations, including the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Brainerd and Garrison, in their collection. The collection box at the Brainerd VFW was constructed by local teen Gillian Middagh as part of her Eagle Scout project last year.
That’s how Greg Tomberlin said he felt after visiting Pioneer Elementary School in Pierz Wednesday, March 6.
The reaction came from leaving the school with 575 pounds of pop tabs. That’s close to a million tabs Tomberlin added to his already massive collection of 3 tons.
“We started out about 10 years ago with one barrel,” he said. “... Ten barrels we’re trying for this year.”
Each barrel weighs 150 pounds and contains roughly 255,000 pop tabs. Tomberlin’s collection began about 10 years ago with a fundraiser for the American Diabetes Association through the Walter P. Chrysler Car Club, to which he belongs. The group decided they wanted another fundraiser, turning their sights to the Minneapolis Polytrauma Rehabilitation Center, which provides in-patient rehabilitative care to veterans and active duty service members with multiple injuries. As an Army veteran who served in the Vietnam War, Tomberlin felt a connection to the program.
They decided their fundraiser would consist of collecting pop tabs.
“That first year we had a 5-quart ice cream bucket full for 42 members,” he said. “... I said, ‘Let’s fill a 55-gallon barrel next year.’ And I got some funny looks and some real laughs and everything else, but we did it. We did it, and we’ve added one barrel every year now, except for COVID. It took us two years during the COVID situation.” The first year of the fundraiser, Tomberlin took the pop tabs to a recycling facility in Monticello, which matched them and paid out 92 cents per tab. The next year, that facility had closed down, and the price for the tabs dropped to around 40 cents. Tomberlin continued collecting them, though, taking money out of his own pocket to donate in the amount he estimates is equivalent to the tabs collected, with the intent of finding a place to cash them in eventually.
Last year’s amount was $2,850, and he expects it to increase significantly this year, thanks in part to students at Pioneer Elementary School.
When deciding on a spring fundraiser this year, Student Council Adviser Tiffanie Quinlan said her fifth and sixth grade students voted to collect pop tabs and donate them to Tomberlin’s initiative, Pop Tops for Veterans. It’s an organization they had donated to in the past, but this year’s collection was much larger, as Quinlan and fellow Student Council Adviser Lisa Talberg decided to add a competition component. The grade that collected the most pop tabs would win a rootbeer float party. I don’t even know how it happened, but I’m thankful that it did.
Greg Tomberlin “We didn’t expect this many,” Quinlan said Wednesday, while gesturing to the plastic containers filled to the brim with pop tabs. The chosen charity was unbeknownst to Tomberlin until he walked into the school one day for an event of his grandson’s and saw the bins with the Pop Tabs for Vets logo on them.
“We seen them there, and I went, ‘Wow,’” he said. It’s the biggest collection Tomberlin has garnered from one project in his decade of collecting pop tabs.
Student Council kids were excited to know they contributed so much to Tomberlin’s efforts as they helped lug the containers out to his car Wednesday. A couple said the fundraiser was even a way to convince their parents to buy pop.
Competition was close among the grades, and Quinlan plans to announce the winners at school on Monday.
Tomberlin, who lives north of Pierz, and wife Sherry Tomberlin pick up pop tabs from all over the community throughout the year, partnering with various local businesses and organizations, including the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Brainerd and Garrison, in their collection. The collection box at the Brainerd VFW was constructed by local teen Gillian Middagh as part of her Eagle Scout project last year.
July 4, 2019, Independence Day Parade
