Shown is Newt Glasgow, Justice paul, Kateri Dorey, Monique Peter-Paul, Mya MacKey-Boehner and Braden Langille.

SHUBENACADIE: For the students at Shubenacadie District Elementary School, Pennies for Haiti was an art project with special meaning.

The students brought in and collected their pennies and pennies of friends of family to make a special art project with their classes, to support earthquake survivors in Haiti.

Spearheaded by teacher Heather Smith, the school-wide competition was one that could truly involve all of the students.

“You don’t like to exclude any children and because of different incomes it’s hard at times, but everybody has a penny,” she said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s one penny, five pennies or 50 pennies.”

A letter was sent home with students on Jan. 25, informing parents and guardians of the project and the pennies poured into the school. Smith says the idea was a great way to engage the kids and create awareness for the devastating earthquake that hit Haiti on Jan. 12.

“We just wanted the kids to get on board with what was going on in Haiti and how it affected the children there,” explained Smith.

With the letter sent, Smith says the students really got on board with the donations and all participated in some way.

“Some kids literally brought their whole penny banks,” she said. “Others took a few pennies from their recess money and lunch money.”

The art project saw students lay out the pennies in designs ranging from trees and outdoor scenes to giant hearts and peace signs. Judges were brought in to choose the winners.

The Grade 3 class, who designed a heart with children holding hands surrounding it, took the top spot, an hour of outdoor activities such as snowshoeing. Grade 5 took the second place prize of an hour of glow in the dark yoga, and Grade 2 took third place, for a half-hour of free gym time.

Now the not-so-fun task of rolling all of the pennies, in rollers donated by the Shubenacadie branch of the Royal Bank of Canada, comes next for staff at the school. But Smith says they hope to incorporate the rolling into a lesson for students.

“We are going to use it in some math activities and incorporate the rolling with the older students,” she said.

And, there is another task to do, as Smith and SDES Principal Darrell Fitzgerald hope to challenge other local elementary schools in the area to do their own fundraisers for Haiti.

“We are going to e-mail the other principals and challenge them so we’ll see what happens,” said Smith.

Although unsure of how much they have raised because they still have a lot of pennies to roll, Smith says she is proud of all of the students for taking part and for their choice of who to support with their donation.

“The kids decided they want the money to go towards something that specifically has to do with children,” she said.

A grand total of $416.45 was raised by the students. Smith would like to thank judge and volunteer Nancy Langille for all of her hard work judging the art and putting in three days of rolling pennies.

acameron@enfieldweeklypress.com