This year’s annual Penny Wars took place at SHA from March 27th to March 31st. The STUCO-led Penny Wars is a fun way for classes to get competitive with each other while raising money for a charity. The goal is to have the most pennies in your class’s bucket by the end of the week and not get sabotaged. Classes can sabotage by putting silver coins, dollars, or cans of food into other classes’ buckets, which in turn deducts that amount of money. Each can of food deducts one dollar (one-hundred pennies!) from the class’s penny total. Girls are invited to bring in any spare change to contribute to a great cause and have a little extra excitement at break and lunch during the week.
SHA has led these “wars” for many years but last year they made some changes. It used to be a part of Spirit Week, but all that excitement took people’s attention away from bringing in money for charity. They ended up combining Penny Wars with a food drive. The money would go to charity and the food would be sent to St. Ann’s Soup Kitchen. This year, however, was the first time STUCO gave the class with the largest total number of pennies the chance to choose where the money would go. SHA used to send it to Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, but now it’s up to the girls. Now the winning class has more than just bragging rights – they get to be actively involved in choosing a charity that needs our help.
The sophomores won the 2017 Penny Wars. Each class ended up with negative balances because of the sabotaging, but the sophomores’ number was closest to zero with -$13.30. Juniors were next with -$73.71. Freshmen had -$151.33 and seniors had -$156.96. This is not to say that freshmen and seniors did not bring in enough pennies. In fact, STUCO says that they brought in the most pennies and money total but the sophomores won because they got sabotaged the least in comparison to what they brought in. The generosity of all classes, especially the freshmen and seniors, is much appreciated!
The Penny Wars gathered about $300 total. The sophomores chose to send this year’s sum to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, a worthy recipient with a wonderful cause. Around 70 cans of non-perishable food were sent to St. Ann’s Soup Kitchen, where they are always happy for any donation of food, big or small. Thank you to all the classes for participating! We will see which class packs in the most pennies next year!