This piece was written by R-W student Ava Strasser:

Just like the past few years, Student Council sponsored the Rolland-Warner Penny Wars.  Penny Wars is a school-wide event where each grade level team goes against other grades and teams to raise money to purchase gifts for local children for Christmas.  The past few years, including this year, we have raised a little over a thousand dollars.  The school gets very involved when it comes time for Penny Wars because all students know the money is going towards a good cause.

With the money Student Council raises during Penny Wars, we go shopping for children who cannot afford Christmas presents.  Student Council goes through Holiday Depot and we try to get local families to shop for.  The ages usually range from infant to seventeen and this year we purchased for 20 children.

The members do not know who they are buying presents for.  Only age and what the children want is provided to the students and our teacher advisers are the only ones who contact families or know any names.  Student Council has gone to the soup kitchen and as Mr. Stevens has said before, “even if members did know the names, which we will not, we have proven that we would be able to handle ourselves with the utmost respect and we know how to handle ourselves in situations to show compassion and carry on normal conversation.”

This year we do have a lot of Student Council members, almost seventy, but we had established a Penny Wars committee and members set up almost everything involved with Penny Wars, besides knowing who the gifts we buy are going to.  There was a lot of work involved but we are a very organized group and we believe that it is for a good cause and an opportunity to be giving around the holidays so the committee does put a lot of hard work and effort into making Penny Wars fun for everyone.

Our Student Council is very grateful we are able to have an event like Penny Wars that we can put on and we are very happy to have a lot of students who want to participate.  Penny Wars is somewhat a tradition at Rolland-Warner and we are happy to be able to give someone who may not get as much as us something to open on Christmas morning.

I, as well as the whole council, am very pleased that we have raised money and gotten the presents for the children.  We are very excited that everyone is getting involved and we hope that in the future we raise just as much or more from Penny Wars.  There is a lot of leadership involved in everything Student Council does to make Penny Wars as rewarding as it is.