WMA middle schoolers host penny wars for Haitian relief

Date: 3/1/2010

WILBRAHAM - Inspired by the community service commitment of upper school students who traveled to Haiti over winter vacation, Blake Middle School students at Wilbraham & Monson Academy (WMA) initiated a fundraising effort to help support the Haitian people following the devastating earthquake that rocked the tiny island nation.

The Blake Middle School Student Council organized a fundraising event called "Penny Wars." The Penny Wars challenge is that each class competes to determine which of them can accumulate the most pennies over a two week period. Each student in grades six, seven and eight could accumulate pennies for their class in one of two ways. One way was to donate a quantity of pennies to your class jar. The second way was to contribute some denomination other than a penny to a competing class jar. A quarter would buy 25 pennies that you could move from a rival class to your class jar; a dollar, 100 pennies; and so on.

The battle waged back and forth over the two week period with grade six sprinting out to the early lead, then grade seven bringing in a massive quantity of pennies that at one point seemed insurmountable. In fact, grade seven students had a 6,000 penny army waiting in reserve along with that commanding lead.

Grade eight went through week one and well into week two with a paltry number of pennies in their coffers. Every time totals were announced, at first with grade six possessing the leading total, and then grade seven, grade eight seemed nonplussed with the comparatively minuscule penny count they had amassed.

All that changed on the Monday marking the final week of the competition. With just four days remaining to attempt any recovery, grade eight hit both grade six and grade seven with a devastating one-two punch that changed the battlefield dramatically. The first ploy was to come in and deposit three huge coffee cans filled with over 9,000 pennies into the fray. Their second volley was to extract 10,000 pennies from each team to be deposited into their rapidly expanding total! Grades six and seven could not recover from this two-pronged assault and grade eight was crowned as the Penny War champion!

The true winners in this contest will be the people of Haiti as Blake Middle School has, at final count, raised more than, $1,500 for the Haitian relief effort. All of the coins were brought to Country Bank in Palmer where, with the help of assistant branch manager Colleen Carey, the coins were counted. Due to the philanthropic nature of the project, Country Bank generously waived their usual service fee, and WMA is grateful to everyone who helped them at the bank.

Blake Middle School students have presented a check to Chris Sparks, the faculty member at WMA who headed the student trip to Haiti in January. Sparks will use his first-hand experience with humanitarian efforts devoted to the people of Haiti to make sure Blake Middle School's donation helps to relieve the suffering and hardship endured by the Haitian people.