The tradition of fundraising through Penny Wars led by the student council occurred last week ending in a win for the Freshmen Class of 2022.

Student council member Emma Edwards explained that this year’s Penny Wars resulted in the largest total of Penny Wars in history with around $1,800 raised. 

Every day, there was an update sent through email by student council with a different class in the lead. When it was announced that the freshmen were the winners during pep rally last Friday, it came as a surprise to many.

“I was surprised. I thought the seniors were gonna win because of the past two years,” freshman Cristina Gomez said.

Due to consecutive wins by the Class of 2019, the seniors went into Penny Wars confident that they would win again.

“I think the seniors are gonna do great like they always do,” senior Lauren Nordling said prior to pep rally.

The Penny Wars was an old tradition brought back in recent years, but in the beginning, it started off slow.

“For reference, the first year we did it, we combined every grade and only raised $40, so one grade got $20, but now, we advertise it, and it gets a lot of bang which is great, ” student council member Selia Potas said.

This year, “the amount I’ve seen in the jars is like no other year. We couldn’t even lift the jugs. That never happened before. It’s the most I’ve ever seen,” student council advisor Ms. Martell said.

“Someone from our grade brought 6,000 pennies. I was shocked that someone would bring in that many pennies,” Gomez said.

Every year, during the duration of spirit week, “you add money to the jars of the different classes but only pennies count towards gaining points, so students will put pennies in their own classes jars,” student council member Eva Kuruvilla said. 

Besides pennies, “students will put other types of coins or dollar bills in other classes’ jars, so they will decrease their points, and then at the end of the week, the class that has the most points wins,” Kuruvilla said.

The premise of Penny Wars is to fundraise for both the classes and the student council with half going to the winning class and the other half going to student council.

From this most recent Penny Wars, the Freshmen Class, as well as the student council, will have about $900 to use throughout upcoming years.

“The whole concept of Penny Wars is to inspire harmless competition between the classes of all four grades which also encourages this idea that we can support one another,” Ms. Martell said.