Kids exceed their goal in collecting pennies to battle malaria

Celebrating raising a mile of pennies to eradicate malaria, 45 youth and adults from Wesley United Methodist Church in Aurora held a "Mile for Malaria" walk April 17 at Lincoln Park on Aurora's far west side.

Wendy Connell, Wesley's Christian education director, organized the event. She kicked it off by reporting kids collected a total of 89,183 pennies, 4,703 over their goal of 84,480 coins.

After Connell gave an opening prayer, 25 youth and 20 adults wearing green T-shirts and bearing banners and wearing homemade posters began the hike around the park. A few even took a second lap. Then the walkers returned to the church for an 11 a.m. service.

According to Connell, "The kids original idea included laying out the pennies end to end, but that seemed a little daunting."

She added that Wesley UMC pledged $13,000 to the United Methodist Northern Illinois Conference effort to raise $1 million for Imagine No Malaria, a Methodist international outreach to increase awareness and prevention of the disease.

"The children of our church decided to help raise that money. In children's church last March, they came up with an idea to raise a mile of pennies," Connell said. "They had heard that it takes 84,480 pennies to equal one mile. With that in mind, they came up with the slogan Mile for Malaria and began collecting their pennies and other coins. Early last month, they reached their goal."

In children's church, youth learned about malaria, helping other people and how the pennies they collected can help with malaria education, medicine, preventive care and treatment by doctors.

In sub-Saharan Africa, malaria kills a child every two minutes. The United Methodist Church's No More Malaria campaign is part of a global partnership to end malaria by using mosquito-proof bed nets, providing medicine and diagnostic tests and draining standing water. Improved sanitation methods have cut malaria deaths by more than half. About 90 percent of malaria victims are children under age 5 and pregnant women.