Oft-forgot pennies purchase a lot in Pakistan

By Bryan McKenzie

Published: March 16, 2008

When Village School co-director Proal Heartwell told me that $600 would pay for one teacher’s annual salary, I immediately gave thanks that I didn’t belong to that union. Turns out that’s not only a non-union wage, it’s a Pakistani non-union wage and a small sample of what 60,000 pennies will purchase in that country.

The penny: Is there no end to its power? It can breed in a pocket, going from a single copperhead coin to 20 in three quick cash purchases; it lives and multiplies in the bottom of desk drawers and in car ashtrays. It’s good for pinching, pitching and, when enough are massed together, purchasing.

Truly, no end to its power

A penny will buy a pencil in Pakistan. What’s more, 2,000 of the suckers will pay for a year’s worth of one student’s school supplies, 5,000 a sewing machine, 100,000 maternal health care for a year, 300,000 an advanced student’s tuition for a year and 5 million will support a school for a year.

That’s why the Village School, a private middle school for girls in downtown Charlottesville, is raising as many tiny Lincolns as it can and giving them to Greg Mortenson, author of “Three Cups of Tea.”

Mr. Mortenson is the organizer of the Central Asia Institute and the Pennies for Peace project. He’s also a guest speaker at the upcoming Virginia Festival of the Book. He will speak at 6 p.m. March 27 at the Culbreth Theatre.

Mr. Mortenson started Pennies For Peace as a way to build, stock and staff schools in remote Central Asian communities. It’s his way of carrying through on a promise made after climbing K2, getting ill and being nursed back to health in a hard-scrabble Pakistani town in the neighborhood of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden.

In a few years, Mr. Mortenson has built several hundred schools, most of which provide an education for girls; regular schools tend to be fundamentalist training grounds for boys. The boys also tend to move out of the rural communities once they’ve attended school, while the girls stay.

“By educating the girls, not only do their lives improve, but because they tend to stay in the community, the community benefits as well,” Mr. Heartwell said.

It takes the Village

As a school for girls, it would be hard for the Village School not to pay attention to Mr. Mortenson’s effort. So, with donated mayonnaise jars from Bodo’s Bagels, some stickers and kindness from merchants, customers, kids and parents, they’ve already collected an estimated 110,000 pennies.

“We talk a lot with the kids about philanthropy and what it means and this shows that just a little can make a big difference,” Mr. Heartwell said, sitting in his English classroom between courses. “Students have been bringing in pennies and we have penny jars in a lot of the stores downtown, which is pretty much our neighborhood. We’re hoping to get enough pennies to raise about $5,000. That will pay to operate a school for an entire year.”

The Village School penny project is expected to wrap up Wednesday.

“We’re hoping we can give him a significant contribution,” Mr. Heartwell said.