Description of the Penny Harvest

            The Penny Harvest started at Ballston Spa High School towards the end of October.  A group of student leaders put together a 30 minute video that was broadcast over the school TV network.  This video explained what the Penny Harvest was all about, what our goal was, when it took place, and how the pennies would be collected.  The video also explained that students would be creating a "brick" for the wall of caring.  Each class created one brick with an issue that they felt needed to be addressed in their local community.  All of the bricks were then taped together in order to create the "Wall of Caring" that is now hanging in the high school main lobby.  The wall was hung to remind students of the community needs and concerns they were collecting money to help.

            The next step was for the student leaders to actually collect the pennies.  The students created the "Class Penny Wars" event.  From the end of October until Thanksgiving break the student leaders collected money during all three lunch periods.  The contest was to see what class could collect the most money.  Every penny put in the class bucket counted as one point.  Any other form of currency put in the class bucket took away points (ex. nickel took away 5 points, a dime took away 10 points, and so on).  The student leaders also created a "thermometer" poster to indicate their progress.  The goal was to collect about 25 30lb sacks of pennies or about $1,250.  The students exceeded this goal in only 2 weeks collecting a little over $1,400!  Reaching our goal gave Ballston Spa a $1,000 grant to give away to the community.  The sophomore class ended up winning the "Class Penny Wars" competition.

            The third step in the Penny Harvest Program was to establish a student philanthropic roundtable.  This is the step that we are currently in.  It started around the middle of February and ends at the end of May.  There are approximately 10-12 roundtable members.  The roundtable is responsible for determining what need the grant should go towards, what organizations are in need, what criteria the organizations need to meet, selecting the actual organization will receive the grant, and creating a public ceremony/press release.  The students needed to come up with a name for their roundtable group.  The name they chose is "United for Change".  They also wrote a pledge that they recite before every weekly Wednesday meeting.

            United for Change decided that the money should go towards helping with the issue of hunger/poverty.  They reached out to over 10 local community organizations that help fight hunger/poverty for information.  This took weeks of dedicated research from the roundtable members.  Of the ten, the students selected 3 organizations to come in for an interview and to present more information about what they do.  The three organizations that came in and spoke were the Regional Food Bank, The Saratoga Preservation Company (Veterans Homeless Shelter), and a food bank from a local church (I forget the name of the church).  After the interviews, the students decided that they wanted to give the money to the Veterans Homeless Shelter.  This will be done in 2 ways.  The first is to give the shelter a check for $750 to use however they see fit.  The students also wanted to provide them with food.  The students decided to give the Regional food bank a check for $250 in order to provide food to the Veterans Shelter (For every dollar donated the Regional Food Bank can provide $10-12 worth of food).  In reality, this really made our contribution to the veterans home worth about $2,500 more than if we just gave them the $250 for food.  The students are also trying to plan service grants.  They want to volunteer their time and help plant the seeds at the Regional Food Bank's farm and they want to hold a food drive for the local church food pantry. 

            The last step that the student leaders will soon begin is creating a ceremony to give away the checks.  Once this is done the students will then repeat these steps for next years Penny Harvest (which will be done k-12!).