Deane Brown Bishop Elementary fourth graders fundraise $5,000 for Dublin Food Pantry

Since opening in 2025, Deane Brown Bishop Elementary has focused largely on developing student leadership as a way to serve the community.

Kelli Traber/Dublin City Schools

Kelli Traber, a fourth-grade teacher who previously worked at Daniel Wright Elementary, followed fellow administrator and now-principal Lucas Bauer’s transition to Bishop Elementary to work together to create spaces and opportunities for students to lead through service.

“I think (what) we're seeing in the world today is that people want to help one another, but they're not always sure how,” Traber says.

At Bishop, this commitment takes shape in programs such as the Kindness Corps through the Seeds of Caring organization, in which fourth graders participate in six service projects each year, while fifth-grade students serve on a leadership team that supports younger students – all designed to also raise awareness of Dublin’s diversity.

Taking that spirit a step further, Traber’s fourth-grade class recently launched a penny war as an additional way to give back.

Call to action

Kelli Traber/Dublin City Schools

Traber’s fourth graders were inspired to help their community after reading Katherine Applegate’s book, Crenshaw.

Crenshaw is a children’s book about a boy named Jackson and his family who are facing food insecurity and making ends meet by living in their minivan. To cope with their living situation, Jackson creates an imaginary friend, Crenshaw the cat.

While discussing the book, Traber and her class had a long conversation about poverty and breaking the stereotypes that come with it, and after connecting the book to real community circumstances, it left the students feeling motivated.

“They started generating all sorts of ideas, (such as) ‘we can give them some of our clothes, we can buy them cars, we can buy them homes,’” Traber says.

Overwhelmed with the amount of generosity garnered by her fourth graders, Traber brought their ideas to Bauer, and together, they decided the school should launch a penny war fundraiser.

Coins for change

The penny war fundraiser consisted of filling water jugs with pennies, with dollar bills acting as positive points, and silver coins acting as a way to sabotage other grades’ jugs.

When Traber and Bauer introduced the penny war to the kids, they quickly went to work.

As a former Dublin Food Pantry (DFP) board member, Traber invited the DFP Executive Director Julie Rinaldi to speak with her class about the socioeconomics of Dublin and how the food pantry assists members of the community.

According to the Dublin Food Pantry, 23 percent of Dublin students are considered economically disadvantaged.

The kids, understanding Traber's relationship to the pantry and having listened to Rinaldi’s speech, set out to make a real impact with the penny war.

“I could definitely see the passion and the drive that a lot of them have to really make this world a better place, and we need so much more of that,” Traber says.

Working together, Traber’s fourth graders put together research to present in each classroom to encourage everyone else to participate in the fundraiser.

Soon enough, Bishop Elementary was covered in homemade flyers about the penny war and the food pantry. Fourth graders were organizing goals and making announcements to the whole school, keeping the community spirit alive.

Each of Traber’s fourth-grade students played a role in the making of the fundraiser: rallying the entire school together, sorting and counting the coins, and tallying the totals.

“It was incredibly impressive because, really, my only role was entering money into the spreadsheet and taking everything to the bank at the end,” Traber says.

Gratitude in giving

Kelli Traber/Dublin City Schools

DFP Director Julie Rinaldi speaks with Traber's class.

As one of the 688 partner agencies of the Mid-Ohio Food Collective, the Dublin Food Pantry is able to purchase food items at steeply-discounted prices. When the pantry receives a $1 donation, they are able to buy enough food for nearly 40 meals.

After the final tally of coins and dollars collected from the students plus the additional donations from the Bishop community, the total collection came to $5,004.16, which will provide more than 12,500 meals to Dublin neighbors in need, according to Traber.

The class who collected the most pennies got to celebrate their achievement, and had the opportunity to pie Principal Bauer. The winning class just so happened to be the one who put the whole thing together-Traber’s fourth-grade class.

“I want to highlight the generosity of our community, but also the leadership that I saw in these 9- and 10-year-olds. They were amazing,” Traber says.

Along with the celebration, students shared statistics they learned from the fundraiser and their visit from the Dublin Food Pantry executive director. A common fact being shared among the kids was just how many meals they were going to supply with the money raised.

Rinaldi returned during their assembly to thank the students for their hard work and expressed gratitude from the entire board of directors at the food pantry.

Acts that follow

Traber is already working with the fourth graders on their next act of service as they look forward to fifth grade and how they will make their mark in 2027 and beyond.

“That's an exciting part of being in the Dublin community, is that I'll get to watch these kiddos go right across the field and attend Jerome High School in a few years, and watch them go off to college and think about what they will accomplish and the goals they will set,” Traber says.