When Pennies for Patients first began in 1995 at the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s North Carolina Chapter, the campaign’s founders may never have foreseen its growth. Since then, Pennies for Patients, also known as P4P, has become a national campaign where elementary, middle and high schools around the nation compete to raise the most money.

Pennies for Patients lasted through the month of February. All the money collected through events and fundraisers went straight to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society to help find a cure for the cancer. Given that this is an especially important cause, WJ students jumped right in

“Everyone [was] so passionate,” said SGA President senior Chris McCurry. “They know [they were] doing it for a good cause, so everyone [got] hyped up.”

Last year, WJ won the competition with a total of $58,263.86, and this year aimed to raise $60,000 according to the SGA and its advisor, Nico Atencio. The final total was $80,495.30, nearly $20,000 over the goal. However, WJ fell short to Walt Whitman High School, who raised roughly $91,000.

The SGA planned to reach this goal through events such as WJ Carnival, Family Feud, Pompons Tournament, WJ Glow, Speed Dating and regular donut sales.

“This year was a lot of fun doing different events,” Atencio commented. “Different was fun.”

Of all of these, the SGA said the dance, WJ Glow, was the must-attend event.

While Pennies for Patients is an important WJ tradition today, sometimes tradition gets an upgrade, as was the case this year. This time around, the SGA attempted to take every idea from last year and make each one even better. In addition, some new events were even added, such as the Carnival and Dance-athon, to “shake things up” and “up the fun factor,” according to the SGA.

If there was one thing the SGA could have changed about P4P however, it would have been to make it longer, such as extending it into two months.

With all these events to plan, keep up with and attend, the SGA and the leadership class is were exceptionally overloaded during February. Therefore, in an attempt to balance and share the workload, the members each had their own assigned project to focus on. For example McCurry and Ty Glover, SGA Vice President, were assigned to the Carnival, which took place on Feb. 2 in and around the cafeteria on campus.

Even though, according to Atencio, P4P ended up going very smoothly, it was, “more of a challenge because of two new events of… large scale[s].”

During the carnival, kids ran from games to the photo booth, from the bungee run to the cupcakes. Everyone was jamming out to the music played by the DJ in the corner of the cafeteria. Simultaneously, they were munching popcorn and signing up for the raffle, which included gift cards and a 19 inch LED television. There were volunteers and attendees of all ages, adults, students and younger siblings alike.

A main goal of the SGA and Atencio was to work with all different student groups in order to make P4P as successful as possible.

“[We] usually try to have different events that reach out to different members of the community,” said Atencio.

However, Atencio said that he wouldn’t be organizing P4P for the coming February. Next year, he said, “It’s someone else’s show.”