Lynn’s Cobbet students donate for cancer

LYNN – Students, parents and faculty at the Cobbet Elementary School raised over $2,100 for blood cancer research last month, showing a spirit of sacrifice in a time when money is tight for everyone.Inspired by their own “cancer hero,” a second grade student named Pablo who has been battling leukemia for over two years, each classroom began taking up a collection for the Lymphoma and Leukemia Society’s Pennies for Patients Program.After less than a month of stuffing spare change and allowance money into the collection jar, the school community raised a total of $2,160 for the program, vastly exceeding expectations.”We are certainly pleasantly surprised and very humbled by the amount of money that came in,” said Principal Brian Fay. “To see our students making sacrifices, as minimal as they may be, really means a lot.”School nurse Priscilla Harrington, who set up the event, said some of the sacrifices made by students were touching, especially considering some of them had their own medical issues.”We have one little girl here who has had open heart surgery. She told me she got $1 from the housekeeper to go to the store and get a snack,” Harrington said. “The store was closed and the housekeeper told her she could go back, and she said ‘no, I have to donate it.’ She took the dollar and put it in the jar.”Harrington and Fay both shared several similar accounts of students passing up a chance at purchasing something from the school store held every Friday or the Scholastic Book Fair that took place last month to donate to a good cause.One parent, living on a modest salary from Dunkin’ Donuts, even donated $25 for each of her two children.”Some students really made some concessions,” said Fay. “A lot of them had money to buy snacks and decided to put them in the pennies for patients jar.”Individual classrooms received prizes for raising money, led by room 227 who had the highest total and will receive a pizza party.One classroom saved enough to be a silver medal winner and six classrooms were bronze medal winners.Harrington said that the heart and soul of the fundraising effort were the classroom teachers, who supported and encouraged students to make donations and kept track of what went on in each classroom.”The teachers have been wonderful,” she said. “They have been so supportive. We couldn’t have done it without them. One staff member even donated $100.”