By GRAHAM BROOKS / Staff Writer

HELENA–Students, parents and teachers at Helena Intermediate School spent the week of Sept. 14-18 going through their pockets, cars, drawers or anywhere else they could find some loose change for the HIS coin drop.

Each day of the week brought a different theme for students and teachers to dress up and bring in as much spare change as possible.

For example, Sept. 14 was dubbed “’50s dress up day” and students were encouraged to wear penny loafers and bring in as many pennies as possible.

Throughout the week, teachers, students and parents helped collect pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters and even bills to try and help raise funds to reach a goal of $15,000.

The goal to raise $15,000 was to help the HIS PTO purchase a class set of Chromebooks and a cart so each grade level would have their own.

Over a span of just a few days, the school met its goal and then some, raising a total amount of $23,000.

HIS principal Kathy Paiml was blown away by the support and hard work of the students and families of HIS.

“We are so thankful of our HIS families,” said Paiml. “They went above and beyond what we had expected. Our goal was $15,000 and we raised $23,000. I think the students and teachers really enjoyed dressing up each day. They were fascinated by the coin machine and were excited to find out their totals each day. HIS Assistant Principal Mrs. (Genet) Holcomb and I are wearing our jail clothes proudly today and appreciate all the hard work of our teachers and PTO and the generosity of our parents. I also want to thank Top it Off for donating our treats for the winning class.”

The deal was that if the school reached their goal of $15,000, Paiml and Holcomb would dress up in prisoner clothes for the day and be locked up in “jail” during lunch period.

The school announced that in addition to being able to purchase the class set of Chromebooks and charging cart, they would also be able to purchase a new microphone system for the cafeteria and stage.

The overall top class to raise the most money was Mrs. Elliott’s fourth grade class. They received the grand prize that included a limo ride to Top it Off frozen yogurt.