Congratulations to Perry Wellness Center peer Kaylon Holt and Dent Hardware owner John Dent for hitting new milestones in an ongoing donation effort.

The pop top donations for the Ronald McDonald House in Columbus is the recipient of an additional 60,000 pop tops gathered through Kaylon’s efforts. Dent Hardware, in downtown Buena Vista, has become the largest collection site for the effort, which has resulted in donations of over a million pop tops to the non-profit organization.

As long-time readers will recall, the collection drive began almost three years ago when Kaylon began collecting pop tops for redemption in order to help a friend’s father who had cancer. After that gentleman passed away, Kaylon continued to project, identifying potential collection sites throughout Americus and Sumter County, Ellaville, and his home town of Buena Vista. Perry Wellness Center provided support and publicity for his efforts, and businesses such as Dent Hardware set up collection stations for community donations.

Recently, Kaylon displayed over 60,000 pop tops that were bagged and on their way to the Ronald McDonald House. He noted, “I have not been bagging the pop tops as I should have, but this almost daily delivery from Dent Hardware has been encouraging for the collection.” He added, “I hope that we have shared the news of Ronald McDonald House and Perry Wellness Center with this drive. I thank all who have helped.”

As for John Dent, he stated, “I am glad that we are helping Kaylon. He is a nice guy, and we want to help him all we can.” As with the efforts of other businesses and organizations, the collection project has gone viral at Dent Hardware. For example, one customer was so excited to join the collection efforts that she contacted a family member in Florida who is a teacher. The teacher has now organized a collection drive in her school, and the first collection of 14,000 pop tops was delivered by the supportive customer to Dent Hardware.

Congratulations to everyone for their hard work, and to Kaylon Holt for inspiring this project in so many businesses and communities.

In the photo above, Kaylon Holt displays 60,000+ bagged pop tops destined for the Ronald McDonald House in Columbus.