Article by Jake Pope
Public Relations Department Co-Op Student
Knox Central High School sponsored a “Penny War” for the American Red Cross Disaster Relief of south eastern Kentucky. A penny war is a competition where each teacher has a jar for a certain class period to donate pennies in, but if anything other than a penny is donated the amount is subtracted from the amount raised for that class; whatever class has the most amount of money at the end wins.
Tristan Philpot, a freshman at Knox Central said “The penny war got pretty intense at moments but to know it was for a good cause kinda gave the competition better meaning.”
Knox Central raised a total of $485.09 in pennies for the American Red Cross to assist in relief for families who have suffered from house fires, storm damage, recent flooding, and more.
$158.37 of the money was raised by two freshman classes at Knox Central; Mr. Sam Creasy and Ms. Kristen Hinkle’s fifth period social studies classes. Mr. Creasy and Ms. Hinkle both said “We’re really proud of our students who were really competitive with one another. Our students see that the school was not raiding a lot of money over all so we challenged one another, our students became very competitive and all together raised $158.37”
After winning the penny war the students celebrated by having a pizza party where the regional representative for the American Red Cross, Coy Prichard, came and spoke about how the money will be spent and to thank them for their effort and their donation.
The penny war at Knox Central was created by Bridgette Carroll, a student teacher at Knox Central and an American Red Cross volunteer, who would like to thank Little Creaser’s and Forcht Bank of Barbourville for donating pizza, pop, and counting the money.