It was quite a thrill for me last month to return to Prairie School where I attended kindergarten through 4th grade to talk with the student council about the FourPennies campaign. The students were excited to help children who are suffering and decided to hold Coin Wars to highlight the injustice of the federal government only giving four measly pennies of their cancer research dollars to children.
Then the game was on! They competed classroom to classroom to see which homeroom could raise the most money. I had the honor of going back two weeks later to announce the two winning classrooms, Mrs. Brotherly-Lamb’s fifth grade and Mrs. Dunlap’s first grade classes.
Those classrooms will be celebrating with a pizza and ice cream party (pizza by Angeli’s)
The generosity of this school community is so touching. The Coin Wars brought in $4,650.23! That’s a lot of coins…. shout out to the student council for counting and wrapping the spoils of this particular war! 
The money raised here will fund another District 203 student’s efforts to help raise awareness and funds for pediatric cancer research. Eric Montgomery is currently hiking the Pacific Crest Trail on his FourPennies campaign. His goal is to raise 4 pennies for the 4.6 million steps he will take on the trail to fund a pediatric brain cancer (DIPG) research project. Students are following Eric’s progress as he hikes, learning about the various ecosystems he passes through, the geography, animals, history, etc… Eric is role modeling for students everywhere what it takes to accomplish a life dream: the goal setting, planning, commitment and discipline.
So District 203…. Thank you for raising such community-minded, curious, dedicated students. Swifty Foundation and the children and families we serve are ever so grateful.
