Students Collect One Million Pennies
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It took the effort of the entire community, but one Lake County school set a goal, and another built the vessel. Margaret Newton Elementary School has a lot of pennies. “I’ve never seen one million of anything in one spot, that I actually knew was one million,” said Margaret Newton Elementary School principal Sherry Darnell. One million pennies, or $10,000, are being removed from an “un-floatable” river boat. “It weighs approximately around 3 and a half tons of pennies once it’s loaded,” said Lake County High School T&I instructor Terry Pierce. The vessel was built by Lake County High School students for a very special purpose. “We wanted the kids to be interested in it,” said Pierce. “And make them interested in putting pennies in it where they could see it filled up to the top.” It took two and a half years to fill to the top, participation from the elementary and high school, as well as the community. “We would take containers to people and ask them, ‘Would you fill this up with pennies and then bring it to us?'” said Darnell. “And we would have little ladies toddle in with cottage cheese containers full of pennies. My family and everyone’s family here collected pennies.” While filling the boat took some time, senior Cody Phelps said un-filling is not easy. “There’s probably going to be about 100 bags of pennies out of it, and each of them weigh about 50 pounds,” said Phelps. “It makes your arms tired – really tired.” But all that hard work pays off. “They’ve reached their goal, that’s the main thing,” said Pierce. “And that’s what we want to teach them to do in life is reach their goal.” The pennies are being shipped off in truck loads to a local bank. Darnell tells us the Parent-Teacher Organization has not decided how the money will be spent, but it will all go towards helping the students.
