Local high schools’ efforts pay off in pennies for Hillside Special Santas

Several of the students that were integral in Batavia High School's winning effort in 98 PXY’s 2007 High School Challenge made the trip up to Hillside Special Santas headquarters Monday, December 17 to help 98 PXY's Kasper present the check for the $27,975.71 (just over 2.7 million pennies!) the contest raised to Hillside Special Santas in a special ceremony.

Three Rochester TV stations came out (See coverage from News 8 Now here and here).

One of the Batavia students, senior Annie Palermo (pictured here) told the story of how they raised a portion of their more than $8,600 donation by putting two teachers up on a roof and taking pledges to keep them up there.

"We had two of our teachers stand on the roof for 24 hours, or however long we could pay to keep them up there," said Annie.

The students estimated that to meet their fundraising goal for the event and to keep the teachers up on the roof the entire time, they needed to receive $120 in pledges an hour.

"We kept them up there for 24 hours, so we made, I think, over $3,000 on that," surmised Annie.

Also on hand were Family First Federal Credit Union's CEO Christine Peters (pictured here to Sally's left) and Director of Branch Operation Karin Allen (pictured here to Sally's right).

After the students from the participating high schools dropped off the pennies, Family First FCU counted them all. Thanks!

Sally also took an opportunity to thank all of the local high school students that participated in the contest. As she says in the video clip below, their efforts will really make this holiday season a very special one for the 5,600 youth and their families Hillside Special Santas is providing gifts to.