8th grade students Zoe Lehman, Cameron Almy and Luke Hubbard with one of the filled coin war tubs.

CTA elementary and middle school have participated in a coin drive competition for charity for the past four years. Each year they like to mix things up to boost energy towards giving and this year was no different and the high school building joined in to make it a whole-school event. The hallways at CTA during the first two weeks of December were LOUD and JOYOUS! Lots of “We bombed you!” and “Not again!” phrases were heard from teachers and students alike. The entire school community seemed to get into the fun of the event. At the end of the two week period, all coins were counted and the winners of this year’s coin drive were the 8th graders with a grand total of positive $43.49! The class with the lowest amount of “positive” funds were the Kindergarteners with a WHOOPING GRAND TOTAL of negative $58.33. For the Coin War, pennies count as “positive” and silver coins and dollars counted as “negative” to come up each class total. For instance, if a class had 100 pennies and a dollar bill in their class tote, it was a wash and made their total zero, but they still had $2.00 to contribute.

During the coin drive week, CTA also held a Toys for Tots campaign and it was decided that the funds raised through the Coin Wars would be donated to Toys for Tots. Not only did students bring in money for the coin drive competition, they also brought in new toys to be delivered to children for Christmas! When all totals were tabulated, CTA raised almost $700 for the Toys for Tots campaign!