Photo Credit: https://twitter.com/mightymaxsych

By Shane Clausing

Mighty Max

Local residents organizing bottle drive for Mighty Max Saturday

Jan 21, 2021 | 6:08 PM

The family of “Mighty” Max Sych is asking Grande Prairie residents to pull their empty bottles together this Saturday to help raise money for Mighty Max.

The little boy from Fairview suffers from a rare disease called Spinal Muscular Atrophy.

Since November, the family has been on a mad dash to come up with $2.8 million dollars to pay for the drug Zolgensma, which can help children with the disease.

Since November, Max and his family have been able to raise $1.1 million on their GoFundMe page.

Over the early part of 2021, people across the province have been putting their bottles together to help raise money.

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Just last week, bottle drives were organized in Edmonton and Calgary. The Calgary bottle drive collected $44,000 for Max, while the final numbers from the Edmonton event are still being counted.

This week, the bottle drive is turning its attention to the Swan City.

Stacie Genier, a friend of the Sych family, says her family attempted their own little bottle drive for Max last week just in their neighborhood and could not believe the response they got.

“My husband and I and the kids posted on our community Facebook page that we were collecting a few bottles to take in for Max. What I thought would be a couple of hours worth of collecting bottles turned into a full-day event, and we ended up raising $665 in one day.”

With the success of the first bottle drive, Genier says she felt she had to try and make this a larger event.

“I reached out to a few people to see if we could make it more city-wide and I was able to get enough people involved and (have people) volunteer their driveways for drop off points, rather than going to each house individually.”

Genier tells EverythingGP that they’ve identified nine houses in nine busy neighbourhoods that would make good drop-off spots.

Those interested in donating are asked to drop their bottles off on the house driveways between 9:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. on January 23. After the bottles are dropped off, volunteers will pick them up and take them to the bottle depot. This will help create for as little close contact as possible.

The following houses in the following neighbourhoods will be accepting bottles:

• Pinnacle Ridge – 7130 115B Street
• Cobblestone – 9410 91A Street
• O’Brien Lake – 6505 110 Street
• Westlake – 10744 160 Avenue
• Whispering Ridge – 10619 155 Avenue
• Westpointe – 7433 112 Street
• Crystal Heights – 8814 113 Avenue
• Carriage Lane – 7659 Saxony Road
• Ivy Lake – 9054 103 Avenue

For those who aren’t able to drop their bottles off between 9:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m., Genier adds there are several other ways you can help.

“Both the Plus I and Plus II Bottle Depots in Grande Prairie and the Sexsmith Bottle Depot have open accounts for Mighty Max. People can drop off their bottles at any time and say their bottles are for Mighty Max.”

With over $1.1 million raised for Mighty Max, Genier is hoping to raise as much money as possible to help get him the treatment he needs.

“Any bottles we collect, we’ll be super happy with. I’m very excited to see what this bottle drive on Saturday is going to make.”

Those who don’t have bottles to donate can continue to donate to Mighty Max and his family on their GoFundMe page. You can also learn more about Mighty Max on his website.