P.S. 24 gives back

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If two classes at the Spuyten Duyvil School (P.S. 24) spend all year collecting coins, how many sandwiches could they make for people in need? The answer: almost 2,000 sandwiches.

“These two classes were the ambassadors for Penny Harvest,” said Tobi Zauberman, referring to her own fourth-grade class and Liza Cohen’s second-grade class. On a recent Wednesday, the teachers had brought the students together for a small ceremony (complete with ice cream) recognizing their community service work during the school year.

“The point of today is to celebrate all the hard work we did this year,” Ms. Cohen explained to the students. Before the ice cream, Ms. Cohen had the students share what they learned over the past several months.

“I learned you have to help people no matter how hard it is,” said fourth-grade student Tracey Hughes.

Starting in the fall, the two classes organized the school’s Penny Harvest, a city-wide coin-collecting campaign. 

Fourth-grade student Noam Pri-Paz explained. “We went and gave presentations to other classes, telling them to donate and we went to collect all the money and donated it to P.O.T.S.,” she said. P.O.T.S. is short for Part of the Solution, a Bronx organization that calls itself a “one-stop shop” for people in need. 

All together, the two classes collected $2,500 from the Penny Harvest. But they didn’t just hand over the money. Instead, P.S. 24 students (with help from parent volunteers) used the funds, plus a grant from the Department of Education, to make those nearly 2,000 sandwiches for P.O.T.S. between March and May.

Noam added the classes also held a drive for toiletries over the winter.

Parents’ Association president Farrah Rubin explained that community service is one of P.S. 24’s top priorities. “A lot of teachers take it upon themselves to create these great community giving projects,” Ms. Rubin said. “They really make a difference, the kids learn a lot.”

Spuyten Duyvil School, P.S. 24, Penny Harvest, Isabel Angell
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