FLEXIBLE, INCLUSIVE, AND CREATIVE

"Pennies" is simple and direct enough to embrace creative activities from individuals, schools, congregations, businesses, clubs, etc. of all kinds and sizes. It can include and unite people of goodwill from throughout the community. Campaigns can confine themselves to family and friends. They can have outreach to the community with varying levels of fanfare, reflecting the community's life in many ways. Or they can work anywhere in between. We'll share ideas and news of such activies as they become available.
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PRINCIPLES

All "Pennies" campaigns follow three basic principles:

• FIRST - Each is all-volunteer, community-based and -run, and independent.

• SECOND - Each youth campaign has a responsible adult mentor and point of contact.

• And THIRD - All campaigns donate 100% of funds collected to a nonprofit charity or good cause, which it identifies publicly during the campaign. (These may include their own, such as a school's scholarship fund or a community arts project.)

"Pennies" will happily post information on this page for any group, mentor, or booster who adheres to these guidelines.
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BENEFITS OF "PENNIES"

A "Pennies from Heaven" campaign obviously benefits the recipients of the donation. But it will also benefit an ever-widening circle of others, throughout the community and perhaps beyond:

• The participating children themselves will gain valuable skills and experience in at least nine important areas.   1) Their natural idealism and compassion will be affirmed and validated by their own deeds.   2) Each one will feel his or her ability to do something, personally, of real benefit to others - they will experience their personal capability to bring real good and enwholement into the world.   3) They will see how the value of that experience multiplies when they work together, in groups.   4) They will learn leadership, initiative, responsibility, and cooperation - with one another, and with adults.   5) And in so doing, they will help build understanding and respect across generational lines.   6) While engaging the public, they will become more self-confident.   7) Over the course of a campaign they will learn planning and patience.   8) They can develop artistic skills by creating their own signs, collection jar labels, badges, and more.   9) And by looking into possible recipient organizations, they can begin to learn research and analytic skills.

• The adult mentors will experience the satisfaction of guiding the growth of young people in compassion and active involvement, and developing themselves as role models.

• Supportive community groups, organizations, and businesses will gain new visibility and respect in the eyes of the public at large, who in turn will be inspired to a new awareness of compassion, generosity, and civic responsibility.

• And people of different backgrounds, situations and circumstances can come into closer contact, building stronger bridges of understanding in these difficult and divisive times. "Pennies" campaigns have great potential for bridging intercultural, interfaith, and intergenerational divides.

"Pennies" looks forward to posting the stories of how your campaign benefits those it touches.
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An IDEA:  INTERCULTURAL COMMUNITY CAMPAIGNS

In an era stricken with xenophobia and strife, areas with diverse populations have a special opportunity. If, for example, groups of children from Christian, Jewish, Islamic, and secular communities get together for a common campaign, and join to make a single, combined contribution to a worthy cause, they would serve as inspirations and edifying role models for many of their elders.
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HISTORY AND INSPIRATION

"Pennies" arose in reply to the suffering of a number of children, two in particular, and in sorrow at the deaths of three. It is offered with great respect and love to the happiness, the enwholement, and the wellbeing of all children.

One evening in late August of 1968, "Pennies'" original inspiration took place in the church and school community of St. Michael the Archangel in suburban Overlea, Maryland. (Years later St. Michael's was to become the home of the first actual campaign. During the year-end holiday season of 1999/2000, members of the community's Holy Name Society conducted the campaign, and gathered over $75 for charity.)

The seed had been planted and began burrowing its way to the sunlight with the suffering and the love of one child of St. Michael's. In subsequent years that seed was watered with the difficult lives and occasionally the deaths of several other children. From the shimmering long-ago summer streets of northeast Baltimore to the battlefields of Vietnam, to the horrific scenes in the pediatric burn unit of Baltimore's Key Medical Center, and beyond, young lives reached out for balm and for light.

In early autumn of 2005, students and families of Forestville Elementary School in Great Falls, Virginia held a very successful independent campaign in behalf of Hurricane Katrina survivors. They raised over $12,000, and consolidated their collections with the help of the local Chevy Chase Bank branch and its manager, Goli Youchidje. The link in this paragraph, above, will take you to that story as reported in The Connection Newspapers.

The basic "Pennies" activity is modeled on the "Trick or Treat for UNICEF" campaigns that began in the 1950s. In those years the children of Forestville, Virginia, now known as Great Falls, first participated in several. On Hallowe'en twilights they went door to door, collecting change for this cause and evoking smiles from their elders while helping their less-fortunate peers overseas. (The UNICEF campaigns continue to the present day. You can reach them through the link below.)

Additional inspirations include the work of the Shriners Childrens Hospitals everywhere; the Helzberg Foundation, home of the "I am Loved" button; Giant Foods' Richard Tubbs and his "Have a Heart" campaign; the "Trick or Treat for UNICEF" program; the Academic Club Methodology(tm) of Sally L. Smith and The Lab School; and the lives of Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama, and Anne Frank.
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DISCLOSURE and CONTACT

This page is an independent activity of Geotrees.Com, and maintained out of Great Falls / Forestville, Virginia; it is not affiliated with any other group. The "Pennies" editor was a member of the St. Michael the Archangel of Overlea youth ministry, 1999-2001, is a member of St. Michael's Holy Name, and has taken the Virtus "Protecting Our Children" training in northern Virginia. The Forestville Elementary activity is completely independent.

Your ideas, questions, suggestions, and stories are always welcome at pennies@geotrees.com.
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LINKS

This section carries links to groups and organizations that resonate strongly with "Pennies from Heaven," its values, and mission. Locally-based activities usually have volunteer opportunities, especially at holiday-time.

• Trick or Treat for UNICEF:   www.unicef.org/support/14884_14838.html
  "The tradition of 'Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF' began in 1950 in the United States when Philadelphia school children first went door-to-door at Hallowe'en collecting money in decorated milk cartons to help the world's children." The tradition continues...

• The Helzberg Foundation:   www.iamloved.org/
  "Spread the Message of Love" with this foundation, home of the "I am Loved" button campaign since 1967, and key to the original inspiration of "Pennies." An activity of the Helzberg Diamonds company.

• Shriners Hospitals for Children:   www.shrinershq.org/hospitals/geninfo.html
  "Shriners Hospitals for Children is a network of pediatric specialty hospitals, founded by the Shrine, where children under the age of 18 receive excellent medical care absolutely free of charge."

• Santa Claus Anonymous:   www.santaclausanonymous.com/
  "A Baltimore area charity dedicated since 1934 to: 'Give a Child a Christmas' by providing anonymous monetary support in the form of gift certificates to parents or guardians of underprivileged children in Baltimore City and the following counties in Maryland: Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Cecil, Harford, Howard." Phone: (410) 685-4830; E-mail: blb317@aol.com.

• Toys for Tots:   www.toysfortots.org/home/
  "Mission: To collect new, unwrapped toys during October, November and December each year and distribute those toys as Christmas gifts to needy children in the community in which the campaign is conducted. Goal: To deliver, through a shiny new toy at Christmas, a message of hope to needy youngsters that will motivate them to grow into responsible, productive, patriotic citizens and community leaders." Very active in the Baltimore area for many years. Baltimore's FM 98 Rock is an especially active partner in 2004.