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Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Common Cents: Fifth-graders Laina Reginelli and Tara Lazzaro work together to add up their pennies.
The Coin of the Realm
By counting pennies, Schallenberger students make pennies count for others
By Sarah Gaffney
When the clock strikes noon, 33 pairs of little hands search munchkin-sized desks in a rush to pull out pencils and calculators. It's penny counting day at Schallenberger Elementary on Koch Lane and the busy bankers of Mrs. Reyerson-Keith's fourth and fifth grade class need to get counting.
Since September, the class has been heading the school's penny collecting drive. Each month, Reyerson-Keith's students go to all the classes in the school and gather containers of pennies, which they then take back to Room 22 and spend the afternoon counting. At the end of the day, a wheelbarrow is borrowed from the kindergarten class to haul the coins to the school's front office.
In May, the grand total of all pennies collected by Reyerson-Keith's class will be donated to Inn Vision's Georgia Travis Center, a day center for homeless women and their children. Reyerson-Keith hopes the check will be for $2,000.
"What's been interesting is that in the years that I've been involved with it ... traditionally we have done about $1,100," says Reyerson-Keith, who has taught at Schallenberger for the past two years. "After three collections [this year], we've already hit our $1,100. I said to the kids, considering that this is the millennium, let's make our goal for this year $2000 in the year 2000. I don't see any reason why we can't make that work."
And work it is. By the end of this rainy Friday afternoon, the students' tiny fingers would sort, count and bag 3,595 pennies.
"By the end of the afternoon, even the most fun thing is tiring," says their teacher. "This is just hard work and I think that's important for them, too."
Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Penny Ante: Justin Thomas, 11, concentrates on counting his stash.
Started in 1992 by Margaret Salmon and Kathy Graham, former teachers at Schallenberger, the penny collection was created to teach the elementary students math skills as well as the importance of giving.
"What we were trying to do with the children was to get them to realize that part of the responsibility of growing up is not just taking but also giving," says Salmon, who taught at Schallenberger for 17 years before retiring in 1998. "We came up with the idea of the penny project and it worked. They got very enthusiastic about it."
Salmon and Graham chose the Georgia Travis Center as the beneficiary because it helped other children, something that the Schallenberger kids could relate to.
"Any time children realize that they can help other children ... by giving up something like a penny, they know it's a good thing to share," says Salmon.
Travis Russell sits at the front of the class, carefully lining up his pennies in stacks of 10. Once he has stacked 500 pennies, he throws all the Abraham Lincolns into a plastic bag. "It's fun to count them and you get math skills, too," says 10-year-old Travis. "Your hands get pretty icky though. We usually have to wash them before lunch."
Fifth grader Laina Reginelli separates dollar bills, silver coins and the occasional eraser from her jar of pennies.
"Some of the pennies are really amazing. Some have train tracks where trains ran over them," says Laina. "We were making a bet who could find the oldest penny. Someone found one from 1953!"
As a mid-year booster for the little bankers, Giorgio's Pizza on Foxworthy Avenue is hosting a pizza party for the class. If the kids collect $2,000, Giorgio's has agreed to give them a celebration party.
"I'm glad we got this far," says Raina. "And I hope we get to $2,000."
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
