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18th Annual Penny Harvest Kicks-off!
Over 1,000 schools nationwide and nearly 500,000 students are currently participating in the Penny Harvest. Click here to read more.
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Kindergarteners Serve as Mentors
By Avanti Taneja, Curriculum Fellow
“We always get emotional when the pennies are picked up,” explains Cara Usatch, Penny Harvest Coach at PS 398 in East Flatbush. Nineteen tiny kindergarten hands quietly waved goodbye to 28 sacks of pennies (840 pounds!) as the monstrous penny pick-up truck carted them away, but the youngsters would soon wave a happy hello to some new friends due to the Penny Harvest experience...
 Just a few weeks later, the kindergarteners accompanied older Philanthropy Roundtable representatives to deliver items purchased with harvest funds to the Breakthrough Food Pantry. The pantry offers a community pre-school program. The kindergarteners got to meet and befriend the pre-schoolers on their visit.
Completely unaccustomed to the role of mentor at the ripe old age of six, each kindergartener, nonetheless, invited a pre-school pal to visit their classroom as a way to cement these budding relationships. Together, they shared a read-aloud story and sang a “Sesame Street” song. In return, the pre-school visitors overcame their shyness and took the stage to perform a song and a well-rehearsed shimmy!
And all the while, the adult chaperones smiled from the sidelines, as they watched their youngsters adopt their grown-up roles so readily.
Fellow Avanti Taneja of Jakarta, Indonesia, graduated from Tufts University. After a second year at Common Cents, her future endeavors will include figuring out how to integrate the dialogues of youth development and international development to amplify the voice of youth across cultural contexts.
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