LEWISBURG -- A penny a day helps keep cancer away. Some people in Union County have a goal of collecting one million pennies for the American Cancer Society...that's $10,000!
Containers like this one are on the counters of Mercantile and more than 40 other businesses in the Lewisburg area, encouraging people to donate their spare change--especially pennies--to Relay for Life.
"We thought it would be really neat to challenge the Lewisburg community to help us collect one million pennies so we have a penny for every dollar we've collected over the course of the Lewisburg relay," Christy Cafeo-Zelechoski said.
One million pennies...that's $10,000 toward the fight against cancer! Organizers of the Lewisburg Relay for Life say this year, the group expects to hit its goal of raising more than one million dollars over the past decade.
"Most of the money stays local for the American Cancer Society and the patients in our area," Maria Bhangdia said.
One of the businesses that got involved in the penny project is Extrava Market, on Market Street in Lewisburg.
"My mother passed away from breast cancer. Cancer has touched my family and it's always been something I like to bring awareness to because I think for most people it has affected their lives in one way or another," Manager Laura Michalak said.
So what do one million pennies look like? To put it into perspective, one million pennies would be 770 of these water bottles or 31.5 of these five gallon jugs.
"I`m seeing containers slowly but surely get filled up. A lot of people have terrific enthusiasm, saying we`ll fill this up in a week, call us back," Cafeo-Zelechoski said.
Event organizers say all of the pennies will be displayed at the Lewisburg Relay for Life, set for June 7th and 8th at the Lewisburg Middle School track.