Introduction
The Penny Harvest is where kids and adults work together to collect money which will be giving to help the community services.
Phase
1 - Collecting
Pennies
The Penny Harvest Leaders is a group of 18 sixth grade students who led the school in collecting over 1,000 pennies. Many classes raised over 60 pounds of pennies each. One third grade class (308) raised over 90 pounds of pennies. We ended Phase 1 with an assembly where the classes who raised the most pennies were recognized. The two classes who raised the most pennies celebrated with a movie and snacks. Then the Penny Harvest leaders took the pennies over to Chase Bank with the Chase Bank mascot to find out how much money was raised. Our school raised over $1,400 in pennies. The Penny Harvest students will be able to donate $1000 and the rest of the money goes to other schools who weren't able to raise enough money.
Phase 2 - Philanthropy Roundtable
The students met weekly to investigate and discuss their community needs. They interviewed their peers and adults to find out more about their environment. They came to a consensus on the 4 main areas of concern in their community. These areas were parks, violence, homelessness and abandoned animals. The students researched how they could help in these four areas and made decisions about where to make the grants.
Phase 3 - Neighborhood Service
The
students decided to give the money to four
different organizations. Two of the organizations were Marah’s Place and
Lincoln Park Community Shelter. They also chose two animal shelters Anti-
Cruelty Society and PAWS Chicago. They were able to visit Marah’s Place
and Lincoln Park
Community Shelter. At both places they made place
mats and paper flowers. They learned that people don’t chose to be homeless
they don’t just wake up one morning and say “I’m going to be
homeless.” They also learned why people become homeless and how the
people are helped.
Grand Finale!
The Penny Harvest leaders chose how much money they wanted each organization to get. They averaged what each student wrote and here is what each organization got:
