The new Big Mac on campus

March 31, 2004 12 AM PT

Marisa O’Neil

Paularino Elementary School students were lovin’ it when fast-food

icon Ronald McDonald paid a visit Tuesday morning.

The red-headed spokesman came to the school to pick up aluminum

soda pop can tabs collected by the students. The tabs are part of a

campaign that benefits the Ronald McDonald House of Orange County,

which houses families of children in local hospitals.

“You’re helping friends you’ve never met,” Ronald McDonald told

students during their morning assembly. “And you’re helping yourself,

too.”

But seeing an international celebrity for the first time isn’t

always what one expects.

“In the commercials, he’s more tall,” one first-grader puzzled.

“He has a wig on,” 7-year-old Katie Baerg observed. Students have

been collecting the tabs and turning them in at the school every

month, Principal John Sanders said. Last month, they collected 27

pounds. One pound equals 1,267 pop tabs, according to the charity’s

website.

The class that collects the most each month gets story time with

Sanders, but he arranged for the special visitor as an extra treat

this month.

Ronald McDonald House Charities collect and recycle the can tops

to raise money and awareness in the community, Orange County

Executive Director Deborah Levy said. Last year, they raised $6,000,

from just the tiny bits of aluminum, for the local house.

“It helps the kids and people who have cancer to get more money,”

6-year-old Miranda Kettle said.

After speaking to students at the morning assembly, Ronald

McDonald visited individual classrooms, much to the children’s

delight. He even dropped by to see kindergarteners practicing a song

in the multipurpose room.

Bella Stone, there to watch her big brother Ronnie, rushed up to

Ronald McDonald and grabbed his hand. As he danced along with the

kindergarteners, 2-year-old Bella joined him.

But Bella must have thought his big, clown feet were getting

tired. She grabbed a chair and dragged it over to him, but Ronald

kept on dancing to the beat.