Coltin Yates, a sophomore at Rouse, has been collecting soda can tabs since last year for the Ronald McDonald houses, places that house children with diseases like Cystic Fibrosis. He went around at his dad’s work and asked co-workers of his father to save their tabs for him. He brought them all in to school when he heard the Student Council was doing charity for Ronald McDonald houses. When asked how many he collected he responded, “I don’t know. I got bored counting after 260 something.”
Coltin said he raised the tabs for charity, but also for a good friend of his whom he had grown up with and shared the same birthday, June 29th. “We used to have joined parties for our birthdays,” said Yates. His friend died at age ten from Cystic Fibrosis but stayed in various Ronald McDonald houses during his treatment time. Coltin found that he wanted to give just as his friend had. “He always gave and never asked for anything in return. He was a good kid,“ he explained. That’s what fueled Coltin to collect all those tabs for the charity that help kids who were in the same position as his friend. Coltin says he isn’t done collecting and will continue to contribute to the charities that help kids like his friend.
Cystic Fibrosis is a disease that is usually diagnosed in people before age 2, and in the 1950’s few kids diagnosed with disease ever make it to elementary school; though now people are living into their 40’s and beyond. Cystic Fibrosis is a condition that makes an excessive amount of mucus that clogs lungs and obstructs the pancreas and stops natural enzymes from helping the body absorb food. About 1,000 cases of this strange disease show up each year in the United States, and only forty-five percent of those cases are in people eighteen and older. Seventy percent are children under age two.
