Jean Barnett isn't surprised when she finds a soda can tab or two sitting in her mailbox or outside her front door.

"It's amusing," she said.

Ms. Barnett, 84, has asked neighbors to join her in collecting soda can tabs, which she'll use to help people buy hearing service dogs.

She and other residents of Redstone Highlands Senior Living Community in Murrysville recently helped Leslie Kelly, of Altoona, raise $127 of the $5,000 she needed to buy and train her newest service dog, Nokie.

Ms. Kelly, 57, has been deaf for the past 23 years. She said she lost part of her hearing in a playground accident as a child. She jumped off a swing and was getting ready to get back up when the swing hit her from behind.

"With the help of a hearing aid, I was able to hear about 83 percent," she wrote in an e-mail.

Then one day, when she was 34, she lost the rest of her hearing, confusing her doctors.

Ms. Kelly said she was on a phone at work, trying to help a woman reschedule her appointment at the Women, Infants and Children program in Altoona. She put the woman on hold, but when she returned to the phone, she realized she could not hear her own voice or the voice of the woman on the phone.

"I had thought my hearing aid batteries had died, which was no big deal," she said. "I had changed the batteries, but it didn't fix the problem. That was when I had lost all my hearing.

"At first, it affected my life in the worst way. It took me two years to learn to accept my hearing loss. It was hard on my children, family and friends."

Life got a little easier when Ms. Kelly bought Sara, her first service dog, a little more than 10 years ago.

Ms. Kelly said she travels frequently for her current job as a deaf and hard-of-hearing specialist for the Center for Independent Living of South Central Pennsylvania.

Having a service dog allows her to relax if the room isn't set up to accommodate her hearing loss.

"I do not have to worry because my service dog will alert me to the alarm clock, someone knocking on the door or if the fire alarm goes off," she said. "I am more comfortable walking in parking garages or lots rather than walking alone, especially at night."

She said she and Sara made a great team. "It was like she knew what I needed."

When Sara died about two years ago, Ms. Kelly said she would not get another service dog.

"How wrong I was! After four months without my Sara, I decided to apply for a new dog."

But to do that, Ms. Kelly needed money -- $5,000 when she included the cost of staying in Harrisburg for three weeks while she and her 2-year-old Nokie underwent three weeks of training.

Ms. Kelly said she held a fundraising dinner to raise money for the dog and she received some help from the state Office of Vocational Rehabilitation.

She also placed fliers around Glendale Year Round in Cambria County, where she and her husband, Tom, have a campsite.

Jamie Sciullio, of Uniontown, also has a site at Glendale Year Round.

Ms. Sciullio had been collecting soda can tabs when she saw Ms. Kelly's fliers. A community service group she belongs to used to collect them and stopped for reasons she didn't know.

When she saw Ms. Kelly's posters, she thought, "It was the perfect solution for getting rid of my tabs."

Soon, Ms. Sciullio's mother, Ms. Barnett, began collecting them. Ms. Barnett said she told other people in her building about the project and "it took off, I'll say."

Now, when she returns to her home, she finds anywhere from one or two tabs to one or two bags full of tabs.

Ms. Barnett said she didn't know how many tabs she'd collected for Ms. Kelly. She'd save them and give them to her daughter, who would pass them along to Ms. Kelly when the two were at their campsites. Ms. Kelly cashes them in for 25 to 30 cents a pound.

Collectively, Ms. Barnett and her neighbors were one of Ms. Kelly's largest donors. So, Ms. Kelly and Nokie visited them at Redstone Highlands last month.

"It's kind of nice [for the residents] because it backed up what they thought they were saving for," Ms. Barnett said.

Ms. Kelly said Ms. Barnett and her neighbors "made Nokie and I feel so special."

Tabs may be dropped off at Ms. Kelly's office, Center for Independent Living of South Central Pennsylvania, 1019 Logan Blvd., Altoona, PA 16601. Or e-mail her at lkelly@cilscpa.org to make other arrangements to get the tabs to her.

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