AIDS Penny Drive collects record amount of cash, coins
Michael Gray ’20, Zachary Phillips ’20, and Caelan Bevan-Abel ’19 count coins and cash donated to the Billy Choy AIDS Penny Drive.
October 29, 2018
From Aug. 27 to Sept. 7, Riordan held its annual AIDS Penny Drive in honor of Billy Choy ’05, who died in 2016 after his struggle with AIDS.
Choy had a lifelong battle with AIDS, but in his time at Riordan, he was constantly smiling and was a happy person, considering his circumstances.
The drive was run similarly to last year, where bills donated helped a house, while coins negatively affected other houses.
During Mentor Groups, the money collected was worth double in each house. During the drive, there were two Mentor Group days, Aug. 29 and Sept. 5.
In those two days alone, Cana raised $1,932, Bolts raised $1,322, Russi raised $671, and Pilar raised $641.
With Cana off to an early lead in house points, the Houses of Pilar, Russi and Bolts saw this drive as an opportunity to try to knock off Cana and put all the coins in the Cana bin, hence the #CoinsforCana slogan.
The attempt was evident, with several students bringing in rolls of coins exclusively for the Cana bin.
In the end, the House of Cana totaled an extraordinary $734.35 in coins, while Bolts, Pilar, and Russi combined totaled $807.50, which is only $73.15 more than Cana alone.
This didn’t faze the House of Cana, as they went on to win this record-breaking drive with a total of $2,250.00 raised. In second place was the House of Bolts with $1,526.00, third was the House of Russi with $1,158,00 and last was the House of Pilar with $775.00. The total money raised was $7,262.31, the most money ever raised for this drive.