School raises money for Edison tower fund
Lincoln Elementary donates proceeds from 'Coin a Day' to tower
BY TOM CAIAZZA
Staff Writer

EDISON - It was like a telethon without the phone banks.

Scores of cheering supporters hooted and howled as each amount total was announced and flashed on giant cards for all to see. An enthusiastic woman was reading the totals, pumping up the crowd for the big finish, the total amount collected.

As the drum rolled and the anticipation hit fever pitch, Cleis Murillo shouted the grand total: $743.11 - then, pandemonium.

This was the scene at the Lincoln Elementary School on Feb. 21 when the results of the "Coin a Day" collection program were announced to the entire school of kindergartners through fifth-graders.

The school had spent most of the month of February throwing loose change into buckets, to be donated to the Edison Memorial Tower Fund and used for part of the tower and museum restoration projects currently under way.

Mayor Jun Choi and Superintendent of Schools Carol Toth joined the rambunctious festivities to congratulate Lincoln Elementary students.

"I want to thank you for your generous, generous generosity," Toth said. "You people are fantastic."

Choi also thanked the students, to which they replied with a resounding and deafening "You're welcome."

"Do you realize that the money raised could have bought 7,000 of the original Thomas Alva Edison light bulbs that he sold back in 1881?" Choi told the students. "I am so thankful and appreciative of all the hard work and the culture of giving and caring that the Lincoln School represents here in the township of Edison."

The proceeds from the "Coin a Day" program will go toward the restoration project at the Edison Tower and Museum. The project got a boost from the federal government several weeks ago when it received a resolution, signed into law by President George W. Bush, extending the time frame to receive matching federal dollars up to $379,000 to go toward repairs of the 70-year-old facility.

Mayor Choi told the children that with the matching funds, their contribution (barring the 12 rupees and 60 cents Canadian that also found their way into the collection buckets) would be near $1,500.

The restoration project has collected more than $125,000 to date, and the Edison Memorial Tower Corp., the nongovernmental body set up to fundraise for the project, has many events planned to spurn more contributions over the course of the six-month extension.

Barbara Yesalavich, a teacher at Lincoln elementary and co-chair of the school's Character Education committee, said that for this year's "Coin a Day" program, they wanted the kids to donate to something visible to them in the community.

"We wanted it to be something that the kids can relate to," Yesalavich said. "They see the tower on the emblem on their soccer uniforms. They see it around. Now, they just have more connection to it."

Yesalavich said that choosing a local fund rather than national charities they have done in the past made sense.

"Reading about the tower and knowing that the matching funds needed to be used, it seemed like the right thing to do," Yesalavich said.

The "Coin a Day" program had educational aspects as well. At the start of the collection period, the students were treated to a presentation by Jack Stanley, the curator of the Edison museum, and teachers were given discretion to include the "Coin a Day" program in their classrooms.

Second-grade teacher Jennifer Burkhalter used the collection and counting of the money as a math lesson that reinforced the addition and subtraction of numbers of two digits or more.

Choi said that the "Coin a Day" program is just one example of a township-wide push to "build a culture of volunteerism, of giving and just having young people think beyond themselves and think about the larger community."

The Tower Corp. will be holding fundraising events throughout the spring in anticipation of the June deadline for matching federal funds.