Day 102: Pennies for Peace

Hello, it is Sophia.

Today as we were thinking of service opportunities, we wanted to stay on the same track of simple and quick. I decided to collect the "most worthless coin in America", the penny. An organization that collects pennies that you might of heard about is Pennies for Peace. After counting my own pennies from my savings, I contributed 64 pennies and gathered 386 more from around the house and my family members. I had a total of 450 pennies or $4.50.

            The Pennies for Peace organization is a program of the Central Asia Institute (CAI) founded by Greg Mortenson.   A shout out to Olivia because the way we found out about the CAI and Pennies for Peace was because she made a quilt for Greg Mortenson when he visited her school.   (picture on right   >)
Pennies for Peace began at Westside Elementary school in River Fall,WI in 1994 when their students raised 62,340 pennies to help Greg build his first school in Pakistan. The main mission CAI focuses on  is education, especially for girls. The Pennies for Peace program and the CAI has been establishing schools in the Middle East and offering hope since 1993.

       I think that this was a great volunteer opportunity, something fun and different.