Pupils Donate $800 in Pennies to Help Hurricane Victims : Relief: The money collected by Pacoima elementary students will be donated to the Red Cross or be used by a Florida school to replace supplies.

Powered by spare change, a fund-raiser at Haddon Avenue Elementary School in Pacoima this week brought in about $800 for the victims of Hurricane Andrew.

To ease the pain of their peers in Florida, some of the 1,000 preschool through sixth-grade students at Haddon brought piggy banks, plastic bags, potato chip containers and soda bottles filled with pennies and by Friday the donations had filled two five-gallon water bottles.

“We had to do something because this was one of the worst natural disasters,” said Vice Principal Nancy Oda of the fund drive, which she and Principal Loraine Mason started after watching TV news reports of the suffering. “We basically thought a penny drive was something that everybody could feel good about.

“We couldn’t even carry them, they were so heavy,” Oda said. “The response was incredible.”

To raise the money, the kids said, they combed through car ashtrays, dresser drawers, laundry piles, city streets and even searched under sofa cushions.

“Everyone was going crazy over pennies,” said Cecilia Mata, 10, a sixth-grader. “Everyone wanted to help, so people were just going nuts trying to find more pennies.”

While some kids brought handfuls of coins, others filled large containers. Eleven-year-old Ignacio Moreno sacrificed $12 in spending money to help the hurricane survivors.

“I’m not greedy,” said the sixth-grader. “If I give this money to the poor, then they’ll have something to eat.”

Nearly two dozen students began the daunting task Friday of counting the pennies and stacking them in piles of 10.

The money will either be donated to the Red Cross or to a Florida school to buy new supplies.

“They all wanted to help in some way, but they just didn’t know how,” Mason said of her students. “But by all of them putting their pennies together, they could really help somebody.”

Haddon students also made about 400 cards to send good wishes to their counterparts in Florida.

The cards will be delivered to Florida children by Judi Garratt and Walter Segalo of Silent Partners, a mime performance group based in North Hollywood. Garratt and Segalo have planned four performances next week to entertain residents of Homestead, Fla., who are living in tent cities.

Frank Duran hopes his letter filled with riddles and poems and accompanied with a picture of Bart Simpson will bring a little happiness to somebody’s day.

“I feel sorry for the people I saw on television,” Frank said. “Some people lost their homes and it just isn’t fair.”