Shriners honor Lynn’s Callahan School for years of charity work

LYNN – Shriners Hospital for Children honored the Callahan Elementary School in Lynn Tuesday for nearly a decade’s worth of charity work that has helped countless children receive care at area hospitals.For 10 years running, students and staff at the Callahan have been saving soda can tabs – a popular charity effort at many schools and offices – to donate to the Shriners Hospital for Children.Redeemable usually for 50-70 cents per pound at recycling facilities, the tabs allow the organization to raise money to transport burned children to their Boston-area hospitals for treatment.What started as an effort to help his friend and Shriner, former Harrington and Callahan Elementary School gym teacher Peter Sawin, has turned in to an annual event for Callahan Principal Ed Turmenne and the school’s students, and the effort was not lost on the grateful Shriners.”We have been doing this pull tab thing for a while and through the years, it does add up,” said Turmenne. “We have been going for about nine to 10 years – we started small but we have kept it going.”Turmenne said he first began talking to Sawin about the charity when both were working at the Harrington School, and he has since carried it over to the Callahan. Sawin has been a longtime volunteer for the Shriners, serving as a familiar Shriner clown performing in parades and community events.Over the years, the school has raised $30,000 for the Shriners, joining the many tab donors across the country, including hospitals in Tampa and Philadelphia, who have raised over $27,000 for the charity.An appreciative pair of Shriners paid a visit to the school Tuesday morning to formally thank Turmenne and his students, presenting the school with a plaque commemorating their years of service to the organization.For Turmenne, the effort not only helps a worthy charity and succeeds in getting burned children the care that they need, it also teaches his students to give back to the community and help those less fortunate.”It is a nice thing to do, it is a community thing,” he said. “It is keeping with what (City Councilor) Paul Crowley and (School Committee member Vincent) Spirito have been talking about with character education.”Crowley and Spirito are spearheading an effort in the city elementary schools to include character education as part of the curriculum in the future so that students learn at a young age to work hard, be honest and give back to the community.