he below article was taken from www.jewishjournal.org (the news link). This is a great cause. I wonder how many wheats or rare cents will be dug out of peoples drawers or change jungs for this... How long will it take. Mike Collecting Coins to Remember the Holocaust With Its 8-Foot Plexiglas Towers in Place, Marblehead JCC’s Ambitious Penny Project is Set to Launch Dec. 19 glass towers Susan Jacobs The Jewish Community Center in Marblehead has installed six custom-made Plexiglas towers designed to hold six million pennies — one to commemorate each victim of the Holocaust. Susan Jacobs Jewish Journal Staff Who says a penny isn’t worth anything? The Jewish Community Center in Marble-head hopes to gather six million of the coppertops — and in the process raise awareness of the magnitude of the Holocaust. The innovative project is the brainchild of Penny Schuler, membership and marketing director of the JCC. Schuler was inspired by a similar project conducted by a JCC in West Palm Beach. “This project struck a chord in me,” she said. “I began to think: What would it take for us to collect six million pennies in the North Shore?” With the help of an engineer, Schuler designed six Plexiglas towers, each 8’ tall x 2’ wide. The clear, custom-made containers were built by a Billerica firm and recently installed in the JCC lobby. At the moment, the towers lack tops, so people who want to donate pennies must leave them in a nearby basket. The JCC is expecting delivery next week of some specially designed tops with clear, plastic chutes. When the tops are installed, donors will be able to march up to the second floor of the building, and drop their pennies down the tube, a visual bound to delight children as well as adults. The JCC Penny Project will be officially launched at a ceremony Tues., Dec. 19 at 7 p.m. Peabody Holocaust survivor Sonia Weitz, Education Director of The Holocaust Center, Boston North, will speak, and several local dignitaries are expected to attend. Schuler estimates that it will probably take two to five years to fill the towers with six million pennies. When that goal is reached, the $60,000 proceeds will be donated to The Holocaust Center, Boston North. She emphasized, however, that the focus is on education, not fundraising. “Our overall purpose is not to raise money, but to raise awareness,” Schuler said. “Each penny represents a soul. We hope this project will keep the story of the Holocaust alive, and serve as a conduit for learning its lessons to those who only think of the Holocaust as a word. Education is so important in Jewish tradition. We need to teach everyone about intolerance and what can happen in the world when it is missing,” Schuler added. The JCC hopes its Penny Project will attract national, and even international media attention. Schuler points out that when schoolchildren in Tennessee began collecting paper clips several years ago, people from around the world were touched by the story and sent in donations. “Of course, it is easier to ship paper clips than pennies, but we want to draw interest in this project from outside our area,” she said. The lofty project has a variety of components that JCC administrators hope will engage the entire community. Seniors, survivors, and children of survivors will act as docents at the JCC, meeting with visitors to provide information about the project. Students will be ambassadors at local high schools, encouraging other teens to collect pennies and in the process, learn an important history lesson. The organization has partnered with the Y2I program, which will require youths to participate in the Penny Project as part of their community service requirement for receiving a free trip to Israel. The JCC hopes local rabbis and clergy will embrace the program and devise ways for their congregations to become involved. Preschoolers at the JCC will make their own collection boxes, a project JCC administrators would love to see imitated at other North Shore pre-schools. Even local banks are getting involved. To help defray the $21,000 it cost to build and install the six towers, the JCC has approached various banks and credit unions to sponsor towers at a cost of $5,000 each. National Grand Bank of Marblehead has already signed on, and others will soon follow. “The banks will have another important role to play in this,” Schuler said. “When we vacuum out the pennies at the end of the project, they’re going to count them.” Schuler is thrilled about the Penny Project, which she hopes will introduce new people to the center. “This project opens up a new way of looking at what we do, and what we stand for,” she said. “It’s exciting to bring a project to the community that transcends all denominations, and helps repair the world at the same time.”
Based on the photo below taken at the end of June I would say they aren't even close Olivia Forman chooses Memories Tower for project Thu Jun 25, 2009, 03:27 PM EDT Tools: PrintCommentsShareThisStumbleUpon Newsvine del.icio.us Digg Swampscott - Swampscott Middle School seventh-grader Olivia Forman chose to collect pennies for the Jewish Community Center’s Six Million Memories Project as one of her mitzvah projects for her upcoming bat mitzvah in September. She got the idea from going to the JCC and seeing the towers in the lobby. Then, she attended the “Got Mitzvah?” event this past spring and took one of the canisters home with her. She then told her teacher about the project and that she wanted to speak to her classmates and ask them to help her collect the pennies. Forman spoke in front of her team (four classrooms) and before you knew it, teachers and classmates from all over the school were bringing her bags of pennies. She hopes to collect more than 3,000 coins. She is the daughter of Amy and Adam Forman of Swampscott.
