Fundraiser adds 'cents' of awareness at school
Linwood Middle School continues project to raise 1M pennies for food bank
BY JENNIFER AMATO Staff Writer

NORTH BRUNSWICK - If a penny saved is a penny earned, how do 150,000 pennies equal a million?

Simple: The students at Linwood Middle School are continuing their "What's a Million" penny project from last school year, and only need $1,500 more to attain their goal of 1 million pennies.

"After realizing we would not reach our goal of one million pennies in one school year, we carried it into this year," adviser Amy Rafano said. "Our initial core of students remain active, while we see new faces every day wanting to get involved. Students are motivated more than ever as we close in on our goal."

The initial idea came from Joyce Kosa, a retired Spanish teacher from South River High School who based her project on a Tennessee school that collected 6 million paper clips to represent victims of the Holocaust. The idea at Linwood is to donate half of the proceeds to the North Brunswick Food Bank to bring awareness to the need to feed the hungry in town, and half to keep in-house for supplies.

To achieve their goal of $10,000, the students and teachers are involved in a homeroom competition - the homeroom that donates the most money will receive a pizza party and the teacher will receive Principal Pete Clark's parking spot for a week and coverage for their last period of the day, which is a study hall. There are also plans to hold Shake-a-Can fund drives in the area as well as another car wash.

So far, to collect the 6,200 pounds of pennies, there were collection containers placed around town, donations from teachers and local community organizations, grade-level competitions at the school and an incentive to have Principal Clark sleep on the roof of the school.

The students also set up Penny Lane at the end of last school year to exhibit facts, guessing games, educational materials, poems and short stories, a Power- Point presentation and science experiments about the zinc and copper coin.Once the million pennies are collected, which is expected to be this year, Rafano said there will be a grand celebration. The community will be invited to visualize exactly what a million is, and the check will be presented to the food bank.

"'What's a Million?' has been so successful because it provides an opportunity for the entire community of North Brunswick- parents, teachers, residents and businesses - to have a positive impact on other people's lives," Rafano said. "We have all experienced the positive power of the community coming together."

The endeavor is part of the Rutgers- PACES Service Learning Project, which has Linwood mentor other middle schools with community-based projects.

Anyone interested in donating pennies, or any type of currency, can visit the school at 25 Linwood Place from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., or call Rafano at (732) 289-3600, ext. 4389, or fellow adviser Mark Amatucci at ext. 4427.