Common Cents Mission: Common Cents, creator of the Penny Harvest, nurtures a new generation of caring and capable young people between the ages of four and 24 by enabling them to strengthen their communities through philanthropy and service-learning.

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Home > Penny Harvest > Location > Colorado > Organizations > Model Partnerships
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MODEL PARTNERSHIPS

Raise Money and Children:

Partner with a Penny Harvest School

Your organization has the power to change young lives.


The Penny Harvest program believes that the moral and civic development of children is everyone’s responsibility. As a community-based non-profit, you can play an especially critical role for Penny Harvest students from around the country: you can educate them about your cause and ignite their passion to help others.

Every year, Penny Harvest students collect pennies and make cash grants totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars to organizations like yours. In addition, many students choose to lend a hand and volunteer their time to help.

Last year, hundreds of organizations across the country were awarded Penny Harvest grants. This year, your organization may be selected as well. Remember: each grant or inquiry from a group of students represents an opportunity for you to teach children about your cause and introduce them to your organization. Potential grantee organizations form relationships with Penny Harvest schools by presenting to students, hosting students on site visits, and providing volunteer opportunities.

In this section you will read our helpful hints on building strong partnerships with Penny Harvest schools and about a few model partnerships between existing schools and community-based organizations.

Read about organizations that have already R.E.A.P-ed the benefits.


REACH OUT

Gwen Salmo of Friends of Karen partnered with nine schools during the Penny Harvest. She successfully reached so many schools because she proactively contacted schools and made sure to follow-up with all of the schools that contacted her.

  • Friends of Karen, in Westchester County in New York, a charity providing material and services to children with life-threatening illnesses, made the long trip from to seven schools scattered around the New York City and spoke on the phone with two additional roundtable groups. She made fifteen minute presentations in which she showed a short video and passed around photographs of the children her organization helps. The rewards – tangible and intangible – made the trips well worth it. Friends of Karen received eleven grants! And Gwen learned so much about the compassionate capabilities of young people.

EDUCATE

The Doe Fund made school presentations come to life when they brought Lester, a man whose life had been changed by the organization, to speak to students at schools throughout the city.

  • The Doe Fund offers transitional services and job training to homeless men by training them to provide needed city clean-up services. Organization representatives traveled to several schools during the Penny Harvest to teach students about the causes and effects of homelessness.  Third grader Ronit Morris described the impact of the presentation:  “They were able to not only tell us what they thought it was like, but what it was actually like.”
Solomon Bradley, a fulltime volunteer at The DOE Fund, explained the positive impact of the formerly homeless men educating children. “There is an enormous need for the men to give service and give back.” The men tell him: “I did so much harm. I took. I stole. Now this gives me an opportunity to teach. To help. To keep someone else from making my mistakes.”


APPRECIATE

Citizens Advice Bureau, a Bronx-based organization dedicated to improving the economic and social well-being of individuals, families and communities who are most in need, asked PS 65 for the names of Penny Harvest Leaders so they could send certificates to thank them for the grant. They also enclosed a newsletter to keep the school updated on their programs.

  • “I really appreciate the hard work and spirit of giving of the children involved in this venture. Accompanying this letter are recent copies of Caring About the Bronx, the newsletter of the Citizens Advice Bureau. Each edition offers information on our various programs.” -excerpt from thank you letter to Penny Harvest Leaders


Molly Honigsfeld of the St. Mary’s Kids Foundation, a division of St. Mary’s Hospital for Children in Bayside, Queens, treats Penny Harvest students the same way she treats her adult donors.

  • The organization mails the schools each of their newsletters, calls them during their bi-annual thank-a-thons, and even invites the Penny Harvest Coaches to the annual food and wine festival for donors. Because St. Mary’s Kids makes such an effort to thank the students, they have received multiple grants for four years in a row. The year 2006 was their luckiest year – six grants!


PRESERVE

Students at Public Schools 246, 46, and Intermediate School 206 in the Bronx volunteered in the daycare at Concourse House, a transitional shelter for women and children.

  • In 2006, Penny Harvest Leaders at PS 246 and PS 46 made grants for the second year in a row to Concourse House, a transitional shelter for homeless women and children in the Bronx. Because the students were already familiar with Concourse House, Executive Director Manuela Shaudt invited them for a site visit, where she gave a presentation about homelessness and a tour of the shelter. Then, the students read to children in the daycare. The students engaged firsthand in a day of learning and service. Each year, the relationships between these schools and Concourse House are able to deepen, because Manuela made the initial effort to make their relationships meaningful. 

“I am really happy to give this money. The kids really need it, and it could help.”

- Abjoa Ghanash, PS 246, in local Bronx newspaper, The Norwood News


Public School 87 of Queens and the local senior center, Middle Village Adult Center, have enjoyed a mutually beneficial partnership since the school made their initial grant in 2004.

  • In 2004, second to fifth grade discovered the Middle Village Adult Center on a walk to research their community. After interviewing the Director, students decided to award $440 of their Penny Harvest funds to the Center and visited the facilities to volunteer. In 2005, students learned that the Center needed new kitchen equipment and again made a grant to help. Students from PS 87 also spent an entire day volunteering, helping to cook and serve meals with the new equipment. Then, it was the senior’s turn to give back to the students. The two generations have established a school-based mentoring program as part of their continued collaboration.
 
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