Students at St. Mary's School held a competitive fundraiser recently as they prepared to make their donation to the St. Joseph's Hospital Foundation.
The week-long fundraiser was held at the end of January, and all the money raised has finally been counted. The fundraiser included a competitive format, called Penny Wars, where each class was a team and each team had a jug to fill with coins that equalled points.
Pennies and loonies counted for positive points, 1 and 100, respectively, while nickels, dimes and quarters were negative points, -5, -10 and -25. Students wanted positive points in their jugs and could put coins that equalled negative points in other teams' jugs. The winner of the competition was the class that accumulated the most points.
Following a pep rally to get the student body completely behind the competition, the students went off to scavenge their attics, drawers, and family members' pockets to do whatever they could to help their team and hinder their competition. Each teams' water jug was stored outside the classrooms so students and teachers from all over the school had access to it.
The kindergarten and junior kindergarten class boasted the most points at the end of the week, winning the game, but the Grade 5 class raised the most money, helped by being the target of other people's negative-counting coins.
All the money raised is going to the same cause. This fundraiser ended up bringing in $1,538.81, which will be donated to St. Joseph's Hospital Foundation when they host their annual Radiothon for Life on March 20 at the Estevan Shoppers Mall.
Grade 8 teacher Agnes Plourde-Doran said it was a fun way to get the students to contribute to an important part of the community through the SJHF.
"Every year we do as a school, and I'm new here so it was my idea to do the Penny Wars fundraiser," she said. "I've done it at university. I ran it at my university so brought it to the school. It's kind of neat."
"The Grade 5s had a negative 1,000 points, but really they had the most money in there. What was fun about it was everyone putting pennies and loonies in their own, but then kids at recess and on their breaks would put dimes and nickels and quarters to (take points away from other teams), but they were really putting in more money."
