Pennies for Peace project crosses Ramona school lines

Pennies for Peace, an international program started by a journalist who was nourished back to health by people in an impoverished Pakistani village, has the attention of Ramona students from kindergarten through high school.

Ramona High School (RHS) students in the after-school Start Something Community Service Club were busy last week counting coins donated by Mt. Woodson Elementary students. RHS juniors Kaitlyn Hoskins and Lauren Fowler coordinated the effort to involve elementary school students in a venture started by Olive Peirce Middle School (OPMS) students and history teacher Mary Jane Mumford.

The high school students gave a presentation about Pennies for Peace to every classroom in Mt. Woodson, met with the school’s Associated Student Body adviser and left collection jars in classrooms.

“Our club is all about club service,” explained OPMS English Pixie Sulser, adviser for the high school after-school club. “Our first project was collecting items for boxes for our military.”

The high-schoolers tagged on to the OPMS project. All the money collected will go to the middle school project.

“These are high schoolers willingly giving their time to others,” said Sulser.

Pennies for Peace, an effort to replace violence with literacy, got under way after journalist Greg Mortenson was separated from his group during an attempt to climb K2 mountain in Pakistan. Without food or water, Mortenson wandered for hours, disoriented and desperate, before being helped by villagers.

Seeing the poverty and need, he attempted to get financial help to build a school. Only students in a small school in Wisconsin, where his mother was principal, helped. They collected pennies and that was the start of Pennies for Peace, an organization that has built more than 78 schools and educated 28,000 students.