San Pablo pennies will make a difference in Pakistan and Afghanistan
Students at Dover Elementary School in San Pablo have been bringing their pennies to school the past few months with the idea that they are making a difference half a world away.
Inspired by the book “Listen to the Wind” that was read to them in the school’s Read-Aloud program, students began bringing any extra pennies to the collection jars set up in 14 Dover classrooms.
Last week their thousands of coins were taken to the Mechanics Bank branch on Macdonald Avenue in Richmond and poured into the counting machine, which ticked off 36,200 cents. The $362 will be sent to Pennies for Peace, a nonprofit program dedicated to bringing educational opportunities to children in Pakistan and Afghanistan by building schools.
As the nonprofit group notes, “A penny is virtually worthless, but in impoverished countries a penny buys a pencil and opens the door to literacy.”
In both the giving and the receiving, their effort is much more than a gesture. Dover serves a low-income population and the majority of students are learning English. “Many of the families are struggling themselves,” said Candace Brochard, who volunteers in the school library where she coordinates the Read-Aloud Volunteer Program.
Pennies, however, are a relatively painless type of donation.
“Listen to the Wind” is the young children’s version of the 2006 bestseller “Three Cups of Tea,” an account of the experiences of an American man from Berkeley who was sheltered and nursed back to health in an impoverished village in Pakistan after a failed attempt to scale the mountain K2.
In return for the care he received, Greg Mortenson promised to build the first school in the village.
That school was built with help from the pennies donated by the Wisconsin elementary school where his mother was principal.
From that came the best-selling book and the Pennies for Peace program, which has spawned similar collections at schools around the United States and built more than 130 schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
“I read this book and it was just such an amazing story that I had to share it,” said Brochard.
©2010 Bay Area News Group
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