(May 8, 2009) — As the students in teacher Ellen Armitstead’s class began counting the coins from different classes, they encountered quite a few surprises. Included in the pile of coins were a restroom token, a Canadian coin and a few coins that were not so easily identified. The students also encountered some dry leaves and a few buttons, probably a contribution from the full can of coins teacher Randy Tiffany brought in. It was all in an effort to raise money for the Pennies for Patients campaign, which provides money for research to help find treatments for leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma. The campaign is nationwide, and had over 20,000 schools participate in 2008. The money also goes toward improving the lives of patients suffering from these cancers. Armitstead originally set a goal of raising $3,000. Though the donations totaled up to around $2,000, Armitstead said she still considers it a great success. “I don’t think anyone can be ashamed of almost $2,000, especially in this economy,” she said. The campaign lasted for three weeks with boxes for the coins being distributed each morning and collected at the end of each day. Armitstead would often stay after school to count the money that was turned in everyday since a daily count was required. Some students were especially generous, donating five and twenty dollar bills. Because there was a competition for which class could raise the most money, some teachers decided to get creative. Teacher Nicholas Doom, for example, decided to have some students make involuntary donations toward the end of the three weeks. “I warned students that if they were tardy, they owed me a dollar for the children,” he said. “If you were caught chewing gum, you owed a dollar for the children.” Teacher Nyrie Gharibian, on the other hand, decided to have a competition among her several classes, promising the winning class a pizza party. With her competition, Gharibian’s classes were able to raise a total of $213.15, the winning amount. Freshman Steve Kechichian, a student of Gharibian, donated nearly $40.00. “I’m a survivor of cancer, and I just think it was a really great cause,” he said. Armitstead was happy with the results, and said that having another Pennies for Patients campaign next year is likely, although she would prefer a more effective way of counting hundreds and hundreds of coins (mostly pennies), which took hours to count by hand.