Jacksonville Beach Leader (FL)

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Pennies for Peace - Kids help internationally…one cent at a time

By Chuck Adams

Loaded down with pennies, a caravan of SUVs containing 14 Montessori Tides students, two teachers and two moms arrived Thursday morning at the Jax Federal Credit Union in Atlantic Beach.

Students from the Penman Road school collected $523.74 on behalf of Pennies for Peace and arrived at the credit union to deposit jars filled with pennies into the facility’s coin-counting machine.

The Tides contingent was led by Nancy Hatton, head of the cultural arts and music program for grades 1-8.

The contributions are for an international program that raises money to help build schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The collection was spearheaded by the school’s seventh and eighth graders.

“We’ve been real excited to be involved in it [Pennies for Peace],” said Hatton. “One of our teachers, Peggy Nolan, got us into it because she had read “Three Cups of Tea,” a book written by Greg Mortenson, who developed the Central Asia Institute. They run Pennies for Peace, the organization that goes into Afghanistan and Pakistan and builds schools.”

Montessori Tides parent Sarah Gross, a Jax Federal member, solicited the credit union’s help to get the project going.

“She asked if we would be willing to let her use our machine. And we said sure,” said branch manager Theron Gibson, who waived the normal three percent the machine charges.

The credit union also put out a jar for coins.

“It’s probably not as much as what they’re going to bring here,” Gibson said before the caravan arrived. “But it’s been a little bit.”

The machine counted 10 jars of pennies, nine delivered by the caravan and the one contributed by the credit union.

“That’s exciting,” Hatton said of the fact the coin-counting fee was waived. When the final tally was reached, the figure saved was $35.

The students were excited about what had been done.

“We’re really proud and happy,” said Julia Kaufman, a sixth grade student. “Pennies for Peace is raising money for schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. We printed out [fliers about the collection drive], put them in children’s folders and posted them around the school.”

“I think it’s just awesome that everybody has brought in so much money to help with education and sees how important it is,” said fifth grader Noah Vosco.

Hatton said the school’s seventh and eighth graders studied Afghanistan and Pakistan during the collection drive.

“They’ve been following the elections here, and also doing some studies on the history of elections in Afghanistan and Pakistan. They did a lot of studies on Benazir Bhutto [the first woman elected to lead a Muslim state, Pakistan’s prime minister from 1988-90 and 1993-96 who was assassinated Dec. 27].

“That’s kind of been the topic of their Current Events the last few weeks,” said Hatton, “to make a connection. It has been interesting.”