Phi Beta Lambda (PBL) found a new way for students to make a difference and it’s as easy as saving a bottle cap.

PBL, Point Park’s business fraternity, started collecting bottle caps around campus. Each plastic bottle cap that is collected will provide one minute of dialysis for a local child in need.

Joseph Tischler, a senior sports, art and entertainment management major and the vice president of programming for PBL, said he found Caps for Kids from a project sponsored by the National Kidney Foundation.

“I was doing research for community service projects that would be easy to start out with but still have good impact,” Tischler said. “From there, I found a contact who had actually worked with it.”

Tischler explained that the process began with setting up bins all over campus. Members of PBL collect the caps, where Tischler then “personally [delivers] them to the contact who gives them to the company.”

Zac Seymour, a junior public relations and advertising major and vice president of marketing for PBL, explained more of what the club does along with community service projects in an interview in Thayer Hall.

“We do that community service project, we have two more planned for this semester,” Seymour said. “We put on Phi Beta Lambda week, we do induction ceremonies, and then after our induction ceremony we go out and feed the homeless.”

Seymour said the purpose of community projects like Caps for Kids isn’t for advertisement for the club.

“[Caps for Kids] is for the kids,” Seymour said. “This isn’t for us. Any time we post it isn’t about us, it’s about community service.”

Not only is it a way for students to help the community, it’s also a way for  students to work together for a good cause.

Resident Educators (REs) are encouraged to involve their floors, and there’s currently a friendly competition going on between floors to see who can collect the most bottle caps.

Jason Carr, a sophomore cinema production major and freshman RE, made his own collection bin and set it up next to the recycling bins on his floor to make it as easy as possible for his residents to donate bottle caps.

“I definitely think that getting involved is important, especially for freshmen dorms,” Carr said. “It’s definitely just an easier way of kind of getting a footing in the school and knowing your way around campus and feeling like you’re a part of something bigger instead of just going to classes.”

According to Tischler, the community service project has shown success so far, with enough bottle caps to provide 30 hours of Dialysis. The project is expected to run to the end of the semester and could extend to the end of the year if it continues to succeed.