When you think of pennies, do you think of coins forgotten in an old piggy bank? Students at Mary Lin Elementary School have learned how important pennies can be.

The Atlanta school collected $5,000 worth of pennies to donate to worthy causes through the Penny Harvest, a national program run by a New York-based organization called Common Cents. Mary Lin is the first school in Georgia to participate.

A group of representatives from kindergarten through fifth grade named themselves the "Lincolns" (after Abraham Lincoln, the American president on the penny) and met throughout the school year. They organized the collection, created posters to advertise the Penny Harvest and decided where to donate the money raised. They hung "The Wheel of Caring," a wheel filled with wedges that represent each classroom's chosen cause.

The Lincolns gave $2,000 to Common Cents to help fund other schools' Penny Harvests, and they're deciding which local organizations will receive the remaining $3,000. They recently interviewed 11 finalists. Some of the organizations they considered are focused on hunger, homelessness, wildlife conservation, breast cancer awareness, pets in need of adoption, tornado relief and park/tree conservation. They'll reveal their choices at the end of the school year.

Lincolns talk about the Penny Harvest

Emma Slutsker, 9, third-grader: "My mom gave me pennies if I practiced the piano more. ... It's really easy to collect a large amount of money if you try."

Ike Hammond, 10, fifth-grader: "You have to work together, and that's probably the biggest lesson."

ArDesia Pierce, 9, fourth-grader: "Now I know how to narrow things down and how to think wisely about how to split the money. ... [The organizations] were competing against each other, and we were the people who made the decisions."

Learn more!

> www.commoncents.org: Learn how the Penny Harvest began and how other schools participate.

> www.marylinelementary.com/penny-harvest.html: Read about Mary Lin's Penny Harvest.