Students fight malaria with a coin war

Student Council is holding a coin war during second period classes Dec. 2–13. Money benefits the Simon Estes Foundation. Students are asked to bring in coins to put in their second hour’s milk jug and the class that raises the most money gets cookies.

Student Council secretary Ellie Marckmann is the head of the coin war committee and is leading the coin war fundraiser.

“We partnered with the Simon Estes Foundation to raise money to eradicate malaria in Africa,” Marckmann said. “So the coin war is one way we are trying to raise money for nets.”

Simon Estes is an opera singer from Iowa who has set out to get high schools in Iowa to fight malaria in Africa.

“Simon Estes talked to Mr. (Brent) Riessen over the summer and he is just going to as many schools in Iowa as possible to get us involved,” Marckmann said.

The Simon Estes Foundation mainly sells CD’s of him singing opera music to raise money for the malaria nets, but student council ran into a problem with just selling the CD’s.

“One issue with the CD’s is that its opera music so it’s not really what high school students are looking for,” Marckmann said. “We have found to sell it to the parents and older people in the community because they appreciate that kind of music more,  and that’s why instead of just selling CD’s we are doing the coin war because students might have more appreciation for that.”

CD’s are being sold in the accounting office.

The rules of the coin war are simple. Coins count for points in the jug, and dollar bills subtract from the total. That’s where the war comes in. It is allowed to take dollar bills and sabotage other classes by deducting their points. No matter what is donated, whether it’s coins or dollar bills, all the money is buying malaria nets to save African lives.

“Every bit counts,” Marckmann said.

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