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Pin Oak 8th Graders Serve Others
February 2007
It’s a myth that teenagers have few interests beyond themselves, their peer group and, of course, their music. Consider the 8th grade dissertation projects at Pin Oak Middle School in Bellaire, Texas. Last fall, teacher Gary Bonner’s students were divided into groups of four and told to find a project that would serve the community. The students themselves were to define the size of the project and the meaning of “community.”
Reina Morales, Leonel Munoz, Cesar Lovo and David Perkins made up one group and quickly decided that they wanted to serve children with cancer. As young people themselves, they related strongly to the difficulties of children whose lives are limited by the disease. “I can’t imagine not being able to go outside and play basketball,” says Cesar.
They interviewed school social worker, Alyson Bricker, for ideas on how to run a fundraiser that would be inspiring and fun. Alyson suggested an event she remembered from her youth called “Penny Wars” in which several competing groups set out tubs and tried to persuade others to toss coins into their tub.
The energized four set up one tub each for the 6th, 7th, and 8th grades in the lunchroom and held their event for five days running. The principal promoted the competition on the school loudspeaker several times, and the pennies began piling up—except that it wasn’t quite that simple. The scoring rules assigned one point to each penny, but you could reduce the score of the opposing teams by putting larger coins or bills in their tubs. For example, a dollar bill tossed in a tub subtracted 100 points from that team’s score. All of the proceeds were pledged to the Children’s Cancer Hospital at M. D. Anderson, and at the end of the week the grade with the highest score would celebrate with a party during last period.
And the winners were--the determined 8th graders, led by Cesar, David, Leonel and Reina. Getting out of class for the party was fun, but the best moment came when they presented a check for $564 to a representative of the Children’s Cancer Hospital. Congratulations to Mr. Bonner and his students for their successful project and for making the entire student body aware of the needs of young cancer patients.