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Penny Wars Help Raise Funds
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Riverbank High School seniors, left to right, Oscar Ortiz, Vincent Meras, and Xzavier Vela all participated in the Pennies for Patients fundraiser and assisted in the final counts that were donated from participating classes. VIRGINIA STILL/THE NEWS

 

Riverbank High School students recently participated in the Pennies for Patients Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS) fundraiser that began on March 9 and continued through March 20.

According to the penniesforpatients.org website, this school and youth fundraiser has been continuous since 1994 with millions of dollars raised in pennies and other spare change by more than 10 million elementary, middle and high school students throughout the country.

The students at RHS had two minutes during second period to ‘bomb’ other classes with change in what was called “penny wars.” Each penny is counted as a point and anything else like silver coins or dollars were calculated as negative points. The second period class that had the most points at the end of the fundraising period won a prize.

The top two fundraising classes at the end of the campaign were Jim Boling’s class with a total of $84.67 collected in pennies and Monte Wood’s class that came in at a close second with $80.75.

The school raised a total of $608.36 in two weeks which will be donated directly to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society for the “Pennies for Patients” campaign.

“Anyone can donate to them through Coin Star – there’s a donation option for several charities on most machines, and the LLS is one of them,” added Adam Erro, Activities Director and English teacher. “We seemed to bring in quite a bit of money, and the actual Penny Wars are usually fun to watch.”

Students like freshman Alex Solorio really enjoyed the penny wars and even ‘bombed’ Mr. Erro’s class with a five dollar bill which helped his second period class.

The LLS Mission exists to find cures and ensure access to treatments for blood cancer patients. And, LLS is the world’s largest voluntary health agency dedicated to the funding of cutting edge treatments for blood cancers.

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