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01.29.10
Penny Harvesters are already responding to the crisis in Haiti
Since the earthquake in Haiti two weeks ago, Common Cents has been flooded with phone calls and e-mails from concerned Penny Harvest coaches wondering how their schools can help the recovery efforts in Haiti. As Penny Harvest schools enter the second phase of the program, students have begun forming Philanthropy Roundtables at their schools. The Roundtables are a distinctive feature of the Penny Harvest which give children the power and the freedom to decide how to spend their harvest funds. A key issue for our students in the coming weeks will be exploring different ways to take action and help the people in Haiti.
01.24.10
Penny Harvest Coaches gear up for Roundtable Season
Last December, Claire Streit, a Penny Harvest Coach at PS 85 in The Bronx, visited a food pantry with a group of her students. The particular group of students she brought to the pantry for a service project were notoriously difficult and had a reputation for being trouble rousers in the classroom. However, the moment they entered the pantry, Claire began to see a transformation in each of her kids. The students witnessed firsthand the need within their own community, and the dignity that the staff treated clients with as they served them hot meals. “They were being empowered to help, to do something real,” Claire said. “I just sat in the back of the room and cried, I could see my kids growing up in front me.”
01.20.10
Panel of experts tackle dropout crisis in discussion
Every 26 seconds a child quits high school. This is the dropout epidemic, and it plagues 1.2 million students a year. So far, tactics to improve graduation rates have been rather, it seems, ineffective. The graduation rate of 2007, according to some studies, is largely similar to the rate from thirty years earlier. But the world has changed since 1977. A high school diploma is no longer enough to guarantee a job, and the doors to upward mobility are slamming shut. In a panel discussion last Thursday at Philanthropy New York titled “Opening a Second Front Against the Dropout Epidemic,” experts spoke about a new tool to engage students and combat apathy— service-learning.
01.14.10
Former board chair John Hobbs dies
John Hobbs, a former board chairman of Common Cents died Jan. 3 of natural causes at his home in Charlemont, Mass. He was 73. He is survived by two daughters and a son.
John was an acutely intellectual man, with an untiring interest in creatively analyzing difficult problems – particularly the problems of human development, and of institutional development; and even more so, the problem of how the two interact. He was also an exceptionally kind and modest person.
12.01.09
Celebrating the Generosity of our Youngsters
At the beginning of December trucks will be rumbling through New York City carrying an unlikely load— hundreds of thousands of pounds of pennies. Last year the Penny Harvest collected about 700,000 dollars, primarily in copper (or zinc—pennies haven’t been primarily composed of copper since 1982). Though it only took about a month for students to collect the coins, and will take two weeks for Common Cents to pick them all up, it will take the bank four months to count and sort all the coins.
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FEATURED VIDEO!
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In 1909, President Lincoln appeared on a one-cent coin and became the first real person—as well as the first American president—to have his face appear on a regular-issue American coin.
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About Us
Principal Amy Andino at the new Academy of Public Relations in the South Bronx witnessed the mature leadership of her Penny Harvest students and realized these students could make other important decisions for their school. She was so impressed with their leadership that she made them the school’s first student counsel.
