Mortar Board “Pennies for Peace” Project Achieves Goal: 600,000 Pennies Collected for Peace

Mortar Board, one of SDSU’s premier honor societies, raised $6,000 (600,000 pennies) to send to the Central Asia Institute to pay half of the cost to build a school in a village in Pakistan or Afghanistan. The “Pennies for Peace” campaign was started last spring by Samantha Spilka, the 2006-2007 president of Mortar Board.

“This project provided the students a chance to engage in something bigger than themselves,” said Spilka. “We took this as an opportunity to educate the SDSU community about the tribal areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan in order to increase understanding about this area of our world in turmoil. Pennies for Peace also gave everyone a cause they could stand behind. Knowing that as little as a penny could make a huge difference in a child’s life and education let us know that we were indeed fighting for a cause.”

Thanks to the passion and dedication of more than 75 student organizations including honor societies, Associated Students, multi-cultural organizations, fraternities and sororities, several major donors, and many departments within the university who participated in the campus-wide collection, the campus-wide goal was met. According to Greg Mortenson, director and founder of the Central Asia Institute, the mission of the institute is “to promote and provide community-based education and literacy programs, especially for girls, in remote mountain regions of Central Asia.”

At the Mortar Board National Conference this summer, the SDSU Chapter of Mortar Board received the Project Excellence Award for “Pennies for Peace.” The book Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson and David Relin, inspired the Pennies for Peace project.

For more information, please visit www.penniesforpeace.org