Pennies can buy kids futures

Sometimes when you see a penny on the floor you opt not to pick it up because, well, it’s just a penny.

The Rosenn Lecture

Greg Mortenson will be the featured speaker for Wilkes University’s Max Rosenn Lecture in Law and Humanities on April 25 at the F.M. Kirby Center in Wilkes-Barre. He will deliver the lecture “Promoting Peace Through Education” at 7:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public, but tickets are required. Tickets to the event are available by calling the center at 826-1100. For more information, call Rebecca Van Jura in the Wilkes University events office at 408-4306.

But some Wilkes University students are learning that the round copper-colored coin can go a long way toward educating children in some Third World countries.

“It’s important to know that a penny can buy a pencil. Here we don’t even think about what a penny can do,” said Michelle Dubbs, 21, a Wilkes student from Millville.

Dubbs was among hundreds of students stopping by the Henry Student Center on Thursday to deposit a few pennies into a plastic jug and to learn more about the need for money for education in Asian countries.

A campus-wide Pennies for Peace campaign kicked off Thursday, as a lead up to the April 25th Max Rosenn Lecture in Law and Humanities. This year’s speaker is Greg Mortenson, founder of The Central Asia Institute and a best-selling author.

The Central Asia Institute is a nonprofit organization promoting and providing community-based education and literacy programs, especially for girls, in remote mountain regions of Central Asia. Founded in 1996, it has built nearly 100 schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan that serve more than 28,000 students, half of them girls.

University students at the student center perused information about the educational needs of children in Pakistan and Afghanistan and learned that one penny equals one pencil in some poor nations.

Big plastic jugs for pennies to be dropped in were placed in all 16 residence halls for a friendly competition on campus to see which dormitory can collect the most pennies. The winning dorm will receive an ice cream social complements of Sodexho, the campus’ contracted food service vendor.

The Pennies for Peace initiative at Wilkes also involves the university’s Education Club, student teachers in Luzerne County schools, and multicultural education classes at the university. The Barnes & Noble store on South Main Street will serve as a community collection point for the campaign.

Aubrey Madara, 20, of Elysburg, serves as vice president of the Education Club. She said she learned that some students were “using sticks to write in the dirt, that’s how badly they want an education.” She said the club has already decided to donate $100 to the project.

The pennies and additional denominations collected from now through April 21 will be given to Mortenson when he arrives in Wilkes-Barre next month.

Amanda Kaster, a 20-year-old student from Mountain Top, serves as a student representative on the Inter-Residence Hall Council on campus. She said it’s only right that if Mortenson is bringing the community the chance for an education when he arrives, that the community should be able to give something to him that he can use to bring education to others who want it.