Deciding how to spend their pennies wisely

ARVADA - Ben Brandt, Issa Grimes and Megan Dorny are first, third and fifth graders respectively living out a kids' dream. Adults are coming to them for money and they have the power to change their world.

The Meiklejohn Elementary School students have been elected to a roundtable at their school to decide where $1,250 that their classmates helped raise in pennies will be donated. The students are taking part in the Penny Harvest, the largest youth philanthropy program in the country, with 14 other grade schools in Colorado. Each follows a curriculum to donate $1,250 and follows it up with a service project this spring open to students throughout their school.

The Meiklejohn students want to help two to four organizations and their age doesn't matter. They have identified that they want to give to non-profits with low administrative costs and specific details about where their money's going.

Recently, Toni Scalera from The Wild Animal Sanctuary in Keenesburg came before the Meiklejohn roundtable to plead for her organization. She shared with the students her facility houses 155 lions, tigers and bears rescued from 42 states and Mexico and pays more than $500,000 per year in food for the large cats alone.

As if the photos of their animals needed enhancing in the eyes of the students, Scalera stressed the facility rescued numerous mountain lions. The Meiklejohn school mascot is the mountain lion.

"It's an organization with a low administrative cost," said Megan Dorny afterwards about the 9 to 12 percent administrative costs at the sanctuary. "It's good for the animals and it sounds like a great place."

Her younger classmate, Ben Brandt, was equally impressed.

"I just think it's a really good place to put the pennies," the first grader said. "(The money) can buy more food for the animals, so they can feed them more and so the animals can get stronger."

Issa Grimes said he had no idea there were so many cases of people taking in wild animals as pets and then, mistreating them when it became hard to take care of them.

"I like the organization," he said. "I can see they are really trying to help the animals and to tell people it's not good to hold animals captive."

The Meiklejohn students hope to finalize which non-profits will get their donations and their classmates as volunteers in the near future.

The Penny Harvest was created in 1991 in the New York City public schools. Since then, NYC grade schoolers have harvested and given away more than $6 million. The program has since grown to schools in Albany, N.Y., Seattle, Florida and this year, to Colorado.

The Colorado schools which have signed up so far to participate in the Penny Harvest include: Denison Montessori, Denver Center for International Studies, Columbian Elementary, Skyline Vista Elementary, Meadow View Elementary, Graland Country Day School, The Logan School, Morris Elementary (Yuma), Canyon Creek Elementary, Eastridge Elementary, Centennial K-8, Lowry Elementary, William Roberts School, Polaris at Ebert and Meiklejohn Elementary.

All told, the students in Colorado raised more than 1.4 million pennies or more than $14,000.

If you are interested in finding out more about the Penny Harvest, or sign your school up to participate, visit http://pennyharvest.org/colorado.