Students turn their two cents into 1 million cents
Linwood Middle School's Penny Project nearing completion
BY JENNIFER AMATO Staff Writer

NORTH BRUNSWICK - The Linwood Middle School "What's a Million" penny project is nearing completion, with another check being donated to the North Brunswick Food Bank.

At the July 7 Township Council meeting, project advisers Amy Rafano and Mark Amatucci gave $7,413 to representatives of the food bank, saying that they are just shy of the $10,000 - or 1 million pennies - goal they set two years ago. This donation was in addition to a $2,000 check presented in April.

"People came out in droves and really gave from their heart," Rafano said.

"You see how everybody can come together for a common cause and a common goal."

The initial idea came from Joyce Kosa, a retired South River High School Spanish teacher, who based her project on a Tennessee school that collected 6 million paper clips to represent victims of the Holocaust. The two Linwood teachers decided to modify the project to fit the Rutgers PACES Service Learning Project, which combines community service with a curricular component, so that students can apply their good deeds to educational material.

For the community-service portion, to achieve Linwood's goal of collecting 6,200 pounds of pennies, the students and teachers held homeroom competitions, raffled Principal Pete Clark's parking spot for a week, convinced Clark to sleep on the roof of the school, participated in Shake-a-Can fund drives, held a car wash, placed collection containers around town and collected spare change.

For the service-learning portion, the students set up Penny Lane to exhibit facts, guessing games, educational materials, poems and short stories, a Power- Point presentation and science experiments about the zinc and copper coin.Amatucci called this a "long struggle, a long, hard journey" but said that it was definitely worth the wait.

"The kids got excited about this project," he said. "It's a way to say they're a part of something."

With around $500 to go, the school is still accepting donations. Anyone interested in donating pennies, or any type of currency, can call Rafano at 732-289-3600, ext. 4389, or Amatucci at ext. 4427.