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BY IVAN SANDERS
STAR STAFF
ivan.sanders@elizabethton.com

A good cause and a bit of competition spurred the students and staff at Cloudland Elementary to fill more than eight gallons with pop-tops in only three weeks.

The pop-top collection effort was a way for students and faculty to support a family in the community. Silas and Ruby Lanthorn are students at the school, and their sister, Emerald Martin, was born on March 8. Emerald will be staying in the NICU unit at Johnson City Medical Center until at least June, and their mother Shelley Winters, will be staying close by at the Ronald McDonald House to be near the hospital.

The pop-top collection campaign benefit the Ronald McDonald House, which provides housing to families of pediatric patients throughout the nation.

“Angie (Lingerfelt), who is the kids grandmother, asked me if we would be willing to put one of those little houses, which is about a gallon or so, out and ask students to donate tabs and I said sure,” said Cloudland Elementary Principal Scott Potter. “I released it to my two ladies here in my front office, Shannon Potter and Lynn Stocton, and they came up with the idea of making it into a competition. And I said, ‘OK if you are going to make it a competition, then I will buy the winners pizza.'”

Potter and Stocton purchased two gallon buckets for collecting the tabs and the principal said “the kids really got into it.”

So much so that two classes at the school filled a four-gallon tub each with tabs.

“We did the collecting for three weeks,” said Potter. “I believe this teaches them that there are programs out there that are worth providing for and helping because those programs help people that are close to us. Someone in our community needed help, and they were helped and we could give back to that program.”

Potter added that it was very important for the school to do the tab collection for the family to show Silas, Ruby, and the rest of the community that “we are a family here.”

The winning class was Ms. Jordi Miller’s Kindergarten class which includes: Kyson Ashley, Liam Birchfield, Allison Clawson, Francis Coffey, Lucas Deans, Vivian Dugger, Joshua Furches, Harper Hayward, Gabriel Hernandez-Martinez, Ivy Husky, Madelynn Lacy, Luke Lomeli, Bobby Odom, Ashton Oren, Ava Powell, Gibson Powell, Ella Tolley, Breland Wellman, and Wyatt Wood.

Ms. Stacy Triplett’s sixth-grade class finished in second place. Those students are Alaina Arnett, Chella Arnett, Gabriel Barnett, Sarah Chamberlain, Ava Cook, Kendra Delaney, Taylor Gibbs, Bryson Hardin, Larry Hernandez-Martinez, Dalton Hicks, Ollie Holm, Kyierra Ingram, Markie Isaacs, Braydon Mabe, Tatum Morell, Jerrica Oakes, Alyssa Whitaker, Bo Wilson, Malia Wright, and Jordyn Yost.