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***image1***Ramstein American Middle School math teacher Judi Zachrau knew it was a good class assignment when she heard it: collect plastic bottle tops and raise money to buy a disabled child a wheelchair.
Through the program, “Bottle Caps of the Heart” ? Les Bouchons Du Coeur ? a French recycling company weighs the plastic bottle tops and gives a Euro credit to French families to buy equipment for disabled children, including wheelchairs. Last year, the program collected 92 tons of bottle caps at €125 per ton. The recycling company estimates that 1 million bottle tops equals the cost of one wheelchair for a child.
It got the RAMS sixth-graders thinking: “How much is one million? And, if we tried, could we collect one million bottle tops?”
The simple math question turned into a class project that energized people across the KMC. It got Little Leaguers talking and church groups galvanized. Collecting bottle tops ? from water, juice and sports drinks ? was fun. And with every toss into a box, the bottle tops started adding up.
“I told my Mom it was for a wheelchair,” said Katy Bonaro, seventh-grader who started helping last school year. “She put a plastic bag near her desk to collect (the bottle tops).”
By the end of the school year, the project had gone international. At Balad Air Base, Iraq, Staff Sgt. Jessica Martinez, whose home station is Ramstein, collected bottle tops for the RAMS class.
“I got involved because it was a good cause,” said Sergeant Martinez. “We’re out here drinking all this water, so it was a great way to help the class out.”
Within months, Sergeant Martinez collected more than 120,000 tops for the class. And, she expanded her efforts to include Soldiers at Camp Anaconda, and other locations in Southwest Asia.
***image2***Back in Ms. Zachrau’s class, students began receiving about 200 pounds of bottle tops a week from Airmen and Soldiers stationed in Iraq. Everyone, it seemed, was collecting plastic bottle tops.
“A mom from Vogelweh Gospel Church brought in bags of them, Little League teams were collecting them,” Ms. Zachrau said. “When I came back from summer break, the room was full of them.”
The RAMS kids have done a heck of a lot of counting. They estimate. They weigh. They work on every conceivable math problem related to the bottle tops.
This month, they hit the half-million mark.
“In less than a year, we have half a million,” said Clarissa Dimgalanta, seventh-grader who counts bottle tops after school. “That’s like, wow.”
Last week, a group of students loaded dozens of boxes into a van ? the first load to head to the recycling center in Metz. Today, Ms. Zachrau rented a van with her own money. It likely will take more than a dozen trips, as Ms. Zachrau’s room is lined with boxes filled with bottle tops. She is seeking help, she said.
“I would like to continue the project, to reach our goal of one million,” she said.
To volunteer to help transport the bottle tops to Metz, about a 90-minute drive from Kaiserslautern, e-mail judith.zachrau@eu.dodea.edu.
Drop off times are the first Saturday of each month from 10 to 11 a.m.
