Archive: Around Town

With the financial pressures of being a no-kill animal shelter, the Tompkins County SPCA can use all the help it can get.  This summer the shelter was so overburdened that it offered a two for the price of one sale on cats for months.  SO it must have been a welcome surprise when SPCA officials learned that the Kindergarten through fourth grade students at Lansing's Raymond C. Buckley Elementary School had raised $1,506 for the shelter in a three week campaign last December.  "It was about the children and coming up with something they would connect with," says Principal Chris Pettograsso.  "And they do with pets.  They love pets."


'Pennies For Pets' came about when teachers approached Pettograsso with a concern about holiday gift giving.  Bringing gifts for teachers and other students had escalated to a point where it was a hardship for some families.  The teachers were concerned that students were comparing the gifts they gave, making some feel left out.  Pettograsso took the problem to the building cabinet, which includes a teacher representative from each grade level.  They came up with the idea that would make a donation of just a penny or two as important as a larger one.

Pettograsso says she was particularly enthusiastic about the idea, because she has dogs and cats at home.  "We're a big cat and dog family, so it was really close to me," she says.  "I was pleased that was where we were going to go with it.  We wanted kids to feel that even if they made a penny or two donation that they were donating."

Students, parents, and teachers loved the idea, raising over $1,500 in less than three weeks.  Students donated spare change.  Some parents donated more, up to $50.  Some classes came up with $20 and some with more than $200.  Lynn VanderPoel's third grade class won a pizza party from Todi's Pizza for raising the most money, more than $300

"We just wanted to close that income gap by taking the stress away," Pettograsso says.  "Kids don't have one classroom teacher any more.  They have music, art, PE, their classroom teacher, the science teacher, administrators... we wanted to take that burden away from families and for them to feel they were still doing the gift of giving and keeping it within our community."

The pennies were collected in jars in the classrooms.  By the end of the campaign there were 40 jars of pennies to be counted.  "We didn't call the SPCA beforehand," Pettograsso says.  "We let them know afterwards.  They were excited, because they're really short right now.  They are always running ads for donations of food, collars, and blankets."

Pettograsso says that feedback from parents was very positive.  "Now we're deciding whether to continue to do 'Pennies For Pets' or 'Pennies For People' next year," she says.  "I'm hoping to get the student body to participate in that, because this year it was a teacher decision."

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