“Pennies from Heaven”
Friday, June 5th, 2009
Todd Johnson, Menlo Park Presbyterian Church, Menlo Park, CA
Todd Johnson of Menlo Park, an attorney with Jones Day in Menlo Park, knew what he wanted to do with his $100 after he heard Steve Haas of World Vision speak on the growing death toll in Africa due to AIDS.
Astonished and saddened by the huge, and growing, number of lives lost, Mr. Johnson decided to start a campaign that would help people in the United States understand the gravity of the AIDS epidemic. He decided to do this by showing people the scale of the number of lives lost since the beginning of the epidemic in the 1980s -- an estimated 25.4 million, according to UNAIDS -- and he decided to do it one penny at a time.
With the help of his wife Lil and daughters Sara and Emily, Mr. Johnson began to collect pennies.
"We didn't start out to raise money, we wanted to raise awareness." he said.
So far, the Johnsons have managed to accumulate about 1.7 million pennies (more than four tons). If they reach the goal of 25.4 million pennies, the load will weigh an estimated 78.3 tons.
The pennies, originally stored in a corner of the Johnsons' garage, have been moved to the back yard because the weight of the pennies began to cause cracks in the cement floor.
To date, the Johnson family and volunteers have invested more than 100 people-hours, sorting and rolling pennies.
How to eventually display the pennies is as big a project as collecting them. Seventy-eight tons of copper is hard enough to move, much less display. Students from Stanford have gotten involved and are working on ways to display the pennies once the goal has been achieved.
According to Mr. Johnson, the United States has committed $15 billion to AIDS relief in Africa over the next five years. He thinks, however, that timetable could be stepped up considerably: "That same amount could be funded in a year and a half if every American would take three pennies and drop it in a jar every time they drink a soda. When you start thinking about the power of all of us working together to do something about it -- even one penny at a time, it's staggering how quickly we can make a difference."
Once the goal of 25.4 million pennies has been reached, the money ($254,000) will be donated to World Vision and other organizations dedicated to AIDS relief in Africa.
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