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What is a Penny Harvest Field Trip?
 One Friday morning in early April, twelve fourth and fifth graders left their building to go on a “field trip”. They didn’t visit a museum, see the animals in a zoo, nor learn about the fish in an aquarium; instead they went to visit a day care center around the corner from their school. These students were representatives from the “Donation Foundation”, the Philanthropy Roundtable at PS 398 in Brooklyn. The day care center they visited was the Rutland Learning Center, a potential grant recipient.
Every day, students at PS 398 pass by the Rutland Learning Center on their way to school. This local center serves 2-4 year-olds in their community of Flatbush (in fact, one roundtable student’s sibling once attended the center). So, when the Donation Foundation was deciding how to allocate their Penny Harvest funds - they identified children, the homeless, the hungry, the sick, and the elderly as the causes they care most about - the students decided that the Rutland Learning Center was an organization they wanted to learn more about.
Click here to read the full story.
 SCORE! The Second Annual
Bowl-A-Thon to benefit Common Cents and the NYC Penny Harvest
Monday June 9, 2008
6:00-8:00pm
Bowlmor Lanes
110 University Place, New York, NY
Sign up now and join us for a fun evening of bowling and help raise money for Common Cents!
One month left to register so visit www.commoncents.kintera.org and start recruiting friends, family and colleagues to support the Bowl-A-Thon today—it's that easy!
Going Green with Common Cents
How SCAF is helping our environment
by Adrian Merrick, SCAF member
 The Student Community Action Fund (SCAF) Council is a high school service group run by Common Cents that aims to help the world through youth service and global awareness. Each year the SCAF Council chooses a global issue of focus, and this year we decided to address global warming because we felt it needed immediate attention, especially from young people. After researching the issue and creating an educational video, we felt that in order to have the greatest impact we should find a project that would positively affect the environment and also educate others about the importance of this issue. Using these criteria as our guide, we found Earth Hour, a project run by the World Wildlife Fund.
Earth Hour achieved all the goals we sought to accomplish; it not only educated people about the importance of helping the environment, but it also empowered millions to join a global effort. Earth Hour began last year in Sydney, Australia when for one hour, 2.2 million people and 2,100 businesses turned off all their lights, delivering a powerful message about the need for action on global warming.
Click here to read the full story.
Common Cents participates in National Service Learning Conference
 Common Cents staff joined thousands of service-learning practitioners and youth at the 19th Annual National Service-Learning Conference in Minneapolis, the largest gathering of youth and practitioners involved in the service-learning movement. The conference, which is hosted by the National Youth Leadership Council, drew attendees from across the United States and other countries. Archbishop Desmond Tutu gave the keynote address.
Common Cents exhibited in the conference’s main hall and staff members presented two workshops sharing some of the best practices we’ve developed through our experience of offering a rich service-learning experience for hundreds of thousands of school children for the past 17 years.
Manhattan Penny Harvest Coach Deanna Belcher from The School at Columbia was awarded a “Certificate of Excellent Practice” award for excellence in service-learning at the conference’s opening plenary. She was one of eleven practitioners honored. She has been a Penny Harvest coach for 5 years and serves on the Common Cents Educator Network.
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Click here to see more news features about the Penny Harvest.
Bronx Times Reporter - 04/03/08
Making Change, one penny at a time
Students from P.S. 14, interview Jessica Bryant, Miss New York, about her involvement with Make-a-Wish as they consider making a donation to the organization.
The Queens Courier - 04/02/08
South Ozone Park students to ‘Walk for Autism’
Penny Harvest students from Virgil I. Grissom Middle School will “Walk for Autism” to help raise awareness for Autism, as well as gather sponsors to generate funds for research.
9News (Colorado) - 04/02/2007
Deciding how to spend their pennies wisely (video included)
Penny Harvest students in Denver, Colorado make decisions about how to spend their money.
Columbia Spectator - 04/01/08
Outreach Day Sees Record Turn-Out
Common Cents Executive Director Teddy Gross and Board Chair Judith Shapiro featured speakers at Columbia University Outreach Day event.
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