News Article

One penny at a time … Marystown woman championing local ‘Pennies for Peace’


2/25/2009 1:35:57 PM


Marystown resident Sandra Shallow is spearheading a local effort to collect pennies for school children in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan. It’s part of a campaign organized by the Central Asia Institute called ‘Pennies for Peace’. She is pictured with pennies collected in the month of January. Photo Submitted by CNA, illustration by Joanne Hann

BY PAUL HERRIDGE
The Southern Gazette

How much is a penny worth?

Quite a lot if you happen to live in the poor mountainous region on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

One penny can buy a pencil for a child in school.

Two thousand pennies, or $20, can pay for one child’s education for an entire year.
It’s that piece of information, garnered when Sandra Shallow read Greg Mortenson’s ‘Three Cups of Tea’, which has spurred the Marystown woman to ask people in the area to think twice before leaving those ‘worthless’ coins lying around.

Mr. Mortensen, born in Minnesota in 1957, grew up on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. He was devastated by the sudden death of his epileptic younger sister in 1992. He vowed the following year he would climb Pakistan’s K2, the second highest mountain in the world, to honour her memory.

He was recovering from the climb in a small village called Korphe, when he promised to help build a school for some children he saw using sticks to write in the sand.

The promise has turned into his life’s work – promoting education, particularly for girls, in the dangerous area most known in the past few years as the likely hiding place of terrorist Osama bin Laden.

INSPIRED
In addition to co-writing the bestselling book about his transition to a humanitarian, Mr. Mortenson is also the co-founder of the non-profit Central Asia Institute and founder of ‘Pennies for Peace’, which raises funds for schools in the volatile region.

Mrs. Shallow, who works in the library at College of the North Atlantic’s Burin Campus, picked up a copy of ‘Three Cups of Tea’ last fall and was so moved by what she read she felt the need to do something.

So, she has.

“I read it and I felt like I needed to take action, and at the back of the book there was a list of places to contract and people to talk to.

“One of the things that jumped off the book for me was ‘Pennies for Peace’.”

The campaign focuses on how the penny has become essentially worthless in the eyes of people in the western world, but in many regions can accomplish much.
Mrs. Shallow said “It struck me because so often I’ve seen pennies left on the floor here at work. It might even be at a checkout, and people won’t wait for the penny. You go through a drive-thru and sometimes you’ve got to ask for the penny. There’s no value.

“So, I thought, well, there’s always people who have a few pennies in their pocket and I’ve always got a few pennies. I’ll start with a jar here on campus, and see how many pennies I can collect.”

When she went back to work in January after the Christmas break, she followed through and put a container in the library and spread the word around the campus via the school’s e-mail system.

The response was instantaneous.

Within a couple days, people were dropping by with pennies they had already collected. One student brought in a beef bucket full. An instructor dropped off a candy jar.

Mrs. Shallow’s goal is to collect pennies throughout 2009 and at the end of the year make the donation to the Central Asia Institute, so they can put the funds towards a school or some other aspect of their education project.

On the organization’s advice, she approached a local bank – in this case the Toronto Dominion Bank in Marystown – that has agreed to hold on to the pennies.
She would like people in the area to get involved, either on their own or as part of the effort she has already started. She’s also encouraging schools to come on board.

She suggested they contact her or one of the organization’s websites to find out more about the curriculum in place.

TANGIBLE
Mrs. Shallow acknowledged societal changes don’t occur overnight.

She sees the education campaign’s focus on girls as an important aspect.
“I think most people will recognize that, in a lot of instances, it’s the women who will pass along the education to their family and their children and so on, and I guess the same thing is true in Pakistan and Afghanistan.”

In her research, she saw the enthusiasm of the fathers and grandfathers in the village, where Mr. Mortenson helped build the first of now nearly 80 schools. Although they were poor, they were more than willing to pay with their own sweat and labour.

That was something that also struck a chord.

It reminded her of growing up as a child in St. David’s, in the Bay St. George region, and hearing her parents talk of the community effort to build a school – a common story in many towns in this province not all that long ago.

“I thought, this is exactly the same thing. These people don’t have the money anymore than my parents or grandparents had the money, but they had the skills and they had the resources.”

For Mrs. Shallow, the opportunity to participate in the ‘Pennies for Peace’ project is a chance to do something real and tangible. Let’s face it – it’s easy to become overwhelmed by all the problems in the world watching or reading the news.

“Sometimes you sit back and think ‘What can I do? There’s nothing I can do,’ but this is something tangible, one penny at a time, that we can do.

“I think it’s an awesome project to be involved in. I really do.”

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Websites of interest:
- Central Asia Institute: ‘www.ikat.org’
- Pennies for Peace: ‘www.penniesforpeace.org’
- Three Cups of Tea: ‘www.threecupsoftea.com’
- Greg Mortenson: ‘www.gregmortenson.com’

Anyone interested in more information from Sandra Shallow can also contact her via e-mail at ‘sandra.shallow@cna.nl.ca’.



Printed with permission from the Southern Gazette