Coins for Kids Turns Spare Change Into Water

In February 2009 Veterans Elementary School mother Germaine Endres chatted with the Blue Planet Run director Sabrina Walasek and agreed to do a fundraiser to bring clean drinking water and sanitation to 6 schools in Guatemala. The fundraiser was called “Changing People’s Lives through Change” (“change” meaning coins that are collected in schools). In each classroom a shoe box was placed to collect the coins for this fundraiser – each shoe box had been decorated with photos from the Blue Planet Run website, and then Germaine cut slits in the shoe boxes to collect the coins (it was a lot of work!!). But it was worth it, for the children in Guatemala! The VES “change” fundraiser raised $321 for the project in Guatemala, and the 6 schools got their clean water over the next 9 months.

In 2010, Germaine Endres joined forces with the new “Coins for Kids” program at Veterans Elementary School started by fellow mother Vicky Chiei. Vicky launched the program to bring money to needy children. The Coins for Kids program has brought money for books for local children in need, raised money for the Maryland Food Bank, and after the earthquake in Haiti, raised $4,000 to help Haiti (one of the VES teachers, Ms. Nadege Marc, is from Haiti, and she worked with the Coins for Kids program to raise this money). Finally, the last Coins for Kids fundraiser of the 2010 school year raised money for Blue Planet Network to bring clean drinking water to children in Cambodia through an ultraviolet water pump & filter system. Germaine and Vicky worked very hard on this fundraiser, making two sets of posters and daily announcements to publicize the fundraiser. And we raised $286 for the children in Cambodia!