Common Cents
From Service-Learning Wiki
| This program was profiled in Growing to Greatness 2004. |
Founded in 1991, Common Cents created and runs the Penny Harvest Program in New York City, New York schools. The program turns the multi million-dollar resource of idle pennies into the philanthropic property of young people. Common Cents believes that by giving young people the means to mobilize, allocate, and use the money they “harvest” through the program, children in large numbers will be able to express their generosity and empathy spontaneously and enthusiastically towards others, learn through practice the skills of a democracy from a very young age, and develop lifelong habits of good citizenship.
Based on the program’s popularity, scope, and track-record, Common Cents has successfully secured substantial in-kind support from the Department of Education and has built strong relationships at all levels of the system.
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Service-Learning in Common Cents
Since 1999, participating schools have followed a Common Cents service-learning curriculum that Common Cents includes standards-based lessons in math, science,language arts, art, character education, and social studies. Common Cents New York conducts two teacher trainings every year. Each training includes the “Common Cents Handbook,” which walks teachers through each module of the program and includes extensive support, research materials, and suggested activities.
The Penny Harvest program has three phases that span the academic year. In Phase One of the “Penny Harvest,” pre-K-8th grade youths gather pennies, working with their families to collect door-to-door. School-wide and classroom activities encourage program-related educational outcomes in areas such as math, art, and character development.
In Phase Two,“Penny Harvest Roundtables,” students run an 8-10 week “Philanthropy Roundtable.” The Roundtable is a group of student leaders who decide how to allocate their school’s Penny Harvest funds to service and community grants.The Roundtable students assess their communities’ needs, conduct site visits to community-based organizations, review proposals, and award grants. Phase Three,“Youth Service,” involves engaging students, parents, community residents, and teachers in service projects for their community.
Projects are planned and led by students to address a range of community issues based on research about the community need. Roundtables can decide to implement service projects and/or other student groups in Penny Harvest, and participating schools can apply for a “Student Action Grant” to create a new service-learning project, or fund a project or organization that is already serving their community.
Scope of Service-Learning
The Penny Harvest Program operates in 721 NYC public and private schools (Pre-K-8), representing 65 percent of the country’s largest school system. Over the last decade, NYC students have transformed their pennies into $4 million dollars. With this money, they have made more than 10,000 grants to schools. Common Cents New York is currently assessing replication models for national expansion to bring the Penny Harvest Program to other sites outside of New York City.
Intended Outcomes
Program staff are in the process of working with faculty from the Department of Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences at Columbia University Graduate School of Arts and Science to evaluate the impact of the program on youths.
