Ton of coins for the greater good

A visitor walking the halls of Collegiate these days might be startled to see a very large, antique bathtub sitting in the front hall of the Upper School.

Not to worry.

It’s there only to signal the season of Ton of Coins, an annual project of the Interact Club.

Each Halloween Day since 1995, Collegiate students grades K-12 have deposited their spare change (or money they’ve saved in anticipation of the moment) into the vintage tub, and the proceeds have gone into a scholarship fund that provides aid for a deserving student who demonstrates need.

“My challenge to our students,” said Lewis “Bubba” Lawson, the Interact advisor since the late 1970s, “is to deny themselves a Coca-Cola or Hostess Ho-Ho or what-have-you, save the money instead, and make a tangible sacrifice that will create something positive for someone else.”

Sponsored by the Rotary Club, Interact has for years been involved in a variety of service endeavors: assisting at retirement homes, recycling drives, and tutoring inner city children at the Boys & Girls Club and the Peter Paul Development Center. Lawson has always sought ways to broaden its scope, and one summer in the early ‘90’s when he was studying at the Shakespeare-Milton Institute at the University of Arizona, a colleague mentioned a “Mile of Coins” fund-raiser at her school

It was a eureka moment. Ton of Coins was born. The first order of business was to locate a suitable collection receptacle.

“I mentioned the idea to Mary McDaniel (then Collegiate’s director of admissions),” Lawson recalled. “She remembered an old bathtub in the woods on her property in Powhatan. “Her husband and I fished it out. It was a Herculean task carrying it through the briars and brambles.  Definitely hernia material.”

They muscled it into the back of the McDaniels’ pickup, brought it to Collegiate, scoured and painted it, and wrote “Ton of Coins” on the side. 

The first year, with no frame of reference and, frankly, some skepticism about the venture’s potential, Interact raised $4,100. A decade later, the grand total stands at $119,771.

“Ton of Coins is an activity that unites us K-12,” said Amanda Surgner, director of admissions.  

“Whether you’re a kindergartner or a senior, you’re participating in a symbolic school event. The broader implication is that the project makes the Collegiate experience accessible to a student who might not otherwise be able to attend.

There’re plenty of Ton of Coins memories. Unaware of the magnitude of the project that first year, club members spread the coins, which weighed almost 1,500 pounds, on a table and put them one-by-one into tubes provided by the bank. Talk about a Herculean task! (Now, a Brinks truck takes the proceeds to the bank. The school gets an accounting a week or so later.)

Lawson also recalls that after the Interact members who initiated the project graduated, some of their parents continued to stop by on Halloween and deposit their coins into the tub.

“And there was another time,” he added, “when a boy and his family got caught up in the largesse of the movement and brought in buckets of quarters, 50-cent pieces, and silver dollars. It was probably $125 to $150 total.”

The last couple of weeks, the tub has visited the Middle and Lower schools. In a few days, it will return to its off-season home just outside the Upper School boiler room. While it might be out of sight, the project it represents will hardly be out of mind. 

“It’s become a Cougar tradition,” said Lawson, an English teacher and coach at Collegiate since 1972.  “I’ve always liked the saying, ‘To whom much is given, much is expected.’ “This is a reminder to children that they have a larger responsibility to their fellow man. It’s a good way of inculcating the spirit of service above self.”