With sparkling eyes and huge grins, the Penny Harvest Roundtable students from Camas Prairie Elementary posed for photographs. It had taken a year of planning, collecting 1,000 pounds of pennies, and some willing labor. Now their dream to make their community a prettier place to live had come true. They had a bench to sit upon and a tree to sit under - after the maple they planted grew a bit, of course.
When the Camas Prairie Elementary students earned $2,000 to give back to their community through grants to local charities, they kept $300 of the money for themselves. Certainly they had earned a pizza party or some other celebration for their hard work.
Instead, they spent their share of the copper coins on improvements to the spot park near their housing development. A tree was important because "too many trees are being cut down," they said. A bench meant people could sit and rest.
Their dream lasted one day. Thieves plucked and made off with the tree, stakes, ties, and all. The bench was left behind, because even knocked apart it apparently proved too heavy to cart away.
"The kids were broken-hearted," says Dena Gursky, Camas Prairie sixth grade teacher and Penny Harvest advisor. "We talked a lot about it until they understood that the important thing was that they tried. And that they made a lot more people aware that even young people their age care about their community."
The Penny Harvest Campaign bench has been salvaged and will have a new home on the grounds of Camas Prairie Elementary, a legacy of kids who care.
As for the tree-nappers: You can restore the students' faith in humanity by delivering one six-foot, ready to plant cut-leaf maple or 12,500 pennies to Camas Prairie Elementary. No questions asked.
Read more about the Camas Prairie Elementary Penny Harvest Campaign and the charities that received grants.
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