Pennies For Patients

It’s the Pennies for Patients service project time of year!  Please send in clean 16 oz. cans for this fund-raising project as they become available in your house.  Thank you!!  Also, if you’d be able to help out with delivering and picking up the money collected in the cans around Itasca for this project, we’d be extremely grateful.  It’s a very minimal job, you’d simply need to deliver the can, and then stop by the business once a week for three weeks in February to pick up its coin/dollar collection.  Please let me know if this is something you and your child would be able to help out with.  Thanks! (if you volunteer, more detailed information will be come home in the future)   We’ve raised nearly $33,000 for Leukemia/Lymphoma in the past few years, so this is a great and worthwhile service project, as well as a Benson tradition that we are proud to have our students and families participate in.

Each year Benson Primary students participate in a fundraiser called PENNIES FOR PATIENTS. The funds collected benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Leukemia is the number one disease killer of children 2 to 15. The idea of children helping other children is what makes this program so extraordinary. In addition to supporting the financial cause, PENNIES FOR PATIENTS is an excellent way for our children to participate in a successful community service effort.

During the first three weeks of February, students decorate and distribute collection cans to over 70 businesses in the area. Volunteer families go to the businesses each week, empty the cans, and bring the monies to school. Students use a coin counting machine donated by Itasca Bank to keep track of the funds.

GRAND TOTALS:
February 2012 - WANTED
February 2011 - $2,921.81
February 2010 - $3,014.35
February 2009 - $3,393.81
February 2008 - $2,490.57
February 2007 - $4,549.26
February 2006 - $4,377.26
February 2005 - $2,608.51
February 2004 - $2,801.54
February 2003 - $2,329.12
February 2002 - $3,170.00
February 2001 - $2,527.63
February 2000 - $2,274.24

Many thanks to the students and families who donated funds, the families who helped with collection, and the many local businesses who participated.
CHANGE IS GOOD!

If you would like to assist by either placing a collection container on your workplace, or donating funds directly, please contact Amy Reuter: or 630/773-0554.