RICH ADDICKS / raddicks@ajc.com
Riley Hendrix, 6, a student at the Atlanta Montessori International School, holds up some of the pennies she and her classmates have collected for ‘Pennies for Peace,’ a fund-raising effort that helps fund a school-building effort in the remote regions of northern Pakistan.
Oak Grove Elementary students donate quarter-ton of pennies
By BO EMERSON
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When it comes to charity, the kids at Oak Grove Elementary school in DeKalb County are heavy contributors.
Heavy, as in hundreds of pounds. They’ve donated at least a quarter-ton of pennies to help children in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
“You should have seen this container,” said Oak Grove dad Martin Belson, a co-pilot of the school’s “Pennies for Peace” fund drive. “You couldn’t get four people to pick it up. It got so heavy they had to reinforce the table.”
Oak Grove is one of 3,200 schools to participate in the program, which was created by humanitarian Greg Mortenson, mountaineer and co-author of “Three Cups of Tea” (Penguin, $15), which has been on the New York Times Best Sellers list for 103 weeks. Mortenson’s book details his quixotic quest to build a school in a remote village in the Karakoram mountains of northwestern Pakistan, starting in 1993, and the ensuing literacy campaign that has swept around the globe.
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