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For Students, Collecting Pennies Pays Off

For students in the Los Angeles area, collecting pennies paid off. A mountain of one million pennies ($10,000) was collected through fundraising efforts spearheaded by a fourth grade class during the 1995-96 school year. The pennies will buy new computers for their school.
During the 1995 holiday season, elementary school children collected 14,133 pennies, nearly 2,000 more than in 1994, for the Omaha World-Herald Good Fellows charity. The Good Fellows charity helps buy eyeglasses, coats and shoes for children of needy families.
Norco Intermediate School seventh and eighth graders, about 1,000 students in all, are collecting pennies for the Leukemia Society of America's Pennies for Patients program. During the 1995-96 school year the students will have raised approximately $2,000 to help find a cure for leukemia. Recent Pennies for Patients drives held at schools throughout three counties in California have raised about $90,000.
Penny by penny, sixth graders at Memorial Boulevard School in Hartford are leading the effort to save the South American rain forest. Several teams of students are collecting pennies to buy tracts of the rain forest through a program called Pennies for the Planet, sponsored by the Virginia-based conservation group Earth Force. The entire school has joined in the effort, with students of all grades reaching into their pockets searching for pennies. After only three school days, students collected $83.39, enough to buy 8,000 square feet of land.

Other schools having heard of the Pennies for the Planet effort are eager to get involved. Kindergarten students at the Plymouth Center School in Plymouth started collecting pennies, too.

In Syosset, Long Island students at St. Edward the Confessor School were involved in a semester long campaign to feed the hungry. Working with Stop World Hunger!, students are participating in the Penny Power project which asks students to collect spare pennies. All money raised will be forwarded to Catholic Relief Services.
Children in Nashville, TN have been encouraged to save their pennies in a savings account with AmSouth Bank. AmSouth's Pockets McPhee savings account program awards children with prizes such as pencils and coloring books as they save. The program has worked in teaching children the value of saving pennies.
Greenbriar Elementary School in Indianapolis, IN, started a penny drive with the lofty goal of collecting one million pennies. In November 1995, nearly 47,000 pennies were added to the fund.

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Americans for Common Cents
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Lincoln In His Own Words

Let me not be understood as saying that there are no bad laws, nor that grievances may not arise for the redress of which no legal provisions have been made. I mean to say no such thing. But I do mean to say that although bad laws, if they exist, should be repealed as soon as possible, still, while they continue in force, for the sake of example they should be religiously observed. - Abraham Lincoln

News from the US Mint

New 2009 Penny Designs

The Mint will issue different one-cent coins in 2009, in recognition of the 200th Anniversary of President Lincoln's birth

Lincoln Bicentennial

In celebration of Abraham Lincoln's upcoming birthday bicentennial in 2009, the United States Mint plans to issue four new versions of the penny, to be released on a rotating basis.

More information about the Lincoln Bicentennial is available here.

Penny Fundraising

Many corporations, national charities, schools, and local philanthropies have realized the worth of the penny. Through the use of point-of-sale collections and competitive penny fundraisers, these groups have turned thousands of idle pennies into real dollars for everything from college scholarships to housing for the homeless. These fundraisers clearly demonstrate the true value of the penny.

More information is available here

Our Kids Making a Difference With Pennies

How To Conduct a Penny Fundraising Drive

Penny Fundraising Handbook is available here

Penny Power Poster is available here