The Penny Project, started in New Hampshire in 2008, inspired members of the First Baptist Church in Penn Yan to collect pennies to support a local program to feed hungry kids.
The Church’s Board of Ministries meeting was about to adjourn a meeting, when Shelly Bicksler said, “Wait a minute, what about this project?” She showed them the Penny Project pamphlet and said she was appalled at the statistics on children in poverty contained in the literature. A goal was set to collect 60,000 pennies and contribute locally to “The Backpack Program,” of Milly’s Pantry.
The Penny Project was started by the youth of First Baptist Church in New London, N.H. Learning that there were 60,000 children in their state living in poverty, they set about collecting 60,000 pennies to visualize that number. Within six months they reached their goal and took the pennies to the state house, where they met with the governor and state representatives.
The Penny Project has now reached the national level through National Ministries of the American Baptist Churches, USA. The goal is to raise 14,000,000 pennies to represent the 14 million children and youth that live in poverty in the United States and Puerto Rico.
To date the contributions from the First Baptist Church congregation and interested community members totals 59,327 pennies.
Bicksler says she remembers her father talking about giving out candy bars to hungry kids when he was overseas in the service. “Of course candy bars aren’t the healthiest food,” she said, but her father talked about the look on their faces.
Bicksler presented the check to Becky Holder and George Schaeffer of the Backpack Program. They told her that there are 1,300 children in Yates County living at the poverty level. Each week 515 bags are filled to be taken home to provide kids with nutritious foods and snacks for the weekend.
More than 55 percent of the students in Penn Yan and Dundee Elementary schools receive free or reduced price breakfast and lunch. Holder said free lunches are provided during the summer at recreation programs. She says when a school snow day falls on a Friday, some parents still come to pick up the backpack food.
Schaefer said, “The need is so great here in our own county.” The numbers seem to be growing, he said. Emergency food is available during the week for families in need.
Holder thanked the Baptist Church for being extremely generous in providing space and help over the years for the Food for the Needy Program.
The Backpack Program has proven to be a real community effort, according to Holder.
She said various community groups come in each week to fill the bags. “We have it down to a science and it only takes 23 minutes to fill 323 bags.
An ARC group checks the bags. School custodians get the bags to Penn Yan, Dundee and Keuka Lake Schools.
School sports teams lend a hand with taking the cases to distribution sites within the schools.
And the result is that hungry local kids have healthy food to take home for the weekend, for pennies.
