Local kids collect $500 worth of pennies for cause
Gilroy – Ryan Yappert smiled brightly when asked how he feels knowing that the copper coins he lugged to school will help a starving family.
“It was really nice knowing that you can save someone’s life with spare change. … that you can find in the car,” the 12-year-old said.
The last week of summer school, Ryan and his classmates brought in bags of pennies to contribute to the cause. After a mere five days, the students managed to raise $500. Gilroy’s Union Bank converted the coins into cash at no cost and cut a check for the Heifer Project International.
The charity, whose mission is to end world hunger, will purchase a pregnant cow or heifer with the cash raised by the Glen View Elementary School summer program students. A family in a Third World country will receive the cow and the calf it births will be given to another family in the same village.
Eventually the village will acquire an entire herd, or at least that’s the charity’s goal. The idea to collect pennies for the Heifer Project sprang from the summer school program’s theme. Every year, staffers select a different theme this year’s being “We Are the World.”
On Monday, the final day of summer school, all of the students participated in a musical based on the humanitarian theme. Gretchen Vandenberg, Glen View summer school music teacher, prepped the students for the performance during the school day.
Each grade level performed two songs and all of the students sang together at the end. The songs all centered around the tolerance topic, with tunes such as “The World is a Rainbow,” and some even in foreign languages.
Vandenberg – who has taught music in Gilroy for the past 30 years – pointed out that the combination of teaching music and giving the children a chance to contribute to a worthy cause helps mobilize a low performing group.
Students who attend summer school require remediation in one or more subjects. In the summer, students receive an hour of music instruction a week, much more than the amount allocated during the school year.
And Vandenberg thinks if school districts begin resurrecting arts programs students, particularly those who need an extra push, will be better off.
“If these kids had this kind of program all year round they wouldn’t be this far behind,” she said.
