Pennies for Patients gives its two cents to aid cancer solutions

Holding multiple basketball-sized boxes, junior Yehchan Yoo entered Spanish teacher Arnaldo Rodriguex’s first-period classroom and set one down. The box read “Pennies for Patients,” and was one of many that were placed in first-period classrooms during the week of March 7.

Pennies for Patients is a nation-wide campaign that works to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society by collecting donations of small coins from  millions of individuals.

Each year, the administration requests one club to be in charge of this campaign’s branch at this school, and this year, Committed to Community was chosen for the job.

The boxes were placed in classrooms by officers of Committed to Community. In order to motivate students to donate, the club decided to reward the highest-donating first-period class with a free breakfast from Rose Donuts and Cafe. The money for the breakfast will come from ASB.

Some teachers are seeing the campaign as an opportunity for some friendly competition.

“My favorite part about this is actually going into the classrooms and sending in the boxes, because all the teachers start to get really competitive,” said junior Alice Bian, who is vice president of Committed to Community. “I was holding several boxes and [Physics teacher Kirk] Davis said, ‘Here, I’ll hand out the rest of them for you,’ and he takes all of them and throws them in the trash [as a joke so that his class would have no competition].”

Likewise, when Yoo visited Rodriguex’s classroom, he noted that Rodriguex immediately placed a $20 bill in the box in order to encourage students to donate. The student response increased significantly when he claimed that if his class won,  the donating competition would count for one of the three culture credits required in his Spanish classes.

“I really enjoy this [campaign] because I think it’s important to support and learn about these organizations,” Rodriguex said. “You never know when someone you love is going to be touched by this illness, and it’s nice to know that there are organizations that do things for families and people with leukemia.”