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Seth Bayes has a disease so rare it doesn't have a name. Since he was young, his immune system has been essentially attacking all of the fat cells in his body.
Though there is no known cure for this disease, doctors at Mayo Clinic are working to slow its progression. Seth takes about 200 pills each week. Every nine weeks, Bayes travels from his hometown of Bristol, WI to receive treatment in Rochester. Seth and his family stay for weeks at a time, and have found great support in the Ronald McDonald House.
When they heard that the Ronald McDonald House was launching a capital campaign to serve more families, they started working. The Ronald McDonald House has long received funding from pop-tab collections. The foundation collects tabs, and then sells them to recycling facilities. Seth made a goal to collect a million tabs.
He exceeded the goal, collecting approximately 1,685,110 tabs. The Bayes family drove to Rochester with an entire trailer full of pop-tabs on July 10 to deliver the collection to the Ronald McDonald house.
Rochester Mayor Ardell Brede thus declared the week of July 10-July 16 "Pop-Tab Week." The declaration aimed to raise year-round support for the work done by the Ronald McDonald House.
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"Every day there's miracles that happen in Rochester at our medical facilities," Brede said. "I think we do forget how fortunate we are here to have the type of medical care that people come from all over the world to receive."
