 While students in the Crosby-Irentian School District have been busy this month, collecting change for a good cause. Students are participating in a penny war to see which grade collects the most money to donate to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. With this week's Golden Apple reporter Rachel Johnson has more. Students at Koyuna Range Elementary School in Crosby are in the middle of a heated competition, the penny war. The penny war, a part of pennies for patients, is an annual tradition in the Crosby-Irentian School District. We've actually been doing pennies for patients for a very long time, back since I can remember. I remember doing it even in elementary school, so it's kind of just a tradition that we've been carrying on for the years. Students in every grade level of the district are collecting money. All of it shall be donated to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. The pennies for patients program is a fundraiser that is nationwide that asks school districts to donate money to patients with Leukemia or Lymphoma to be paying for those treatments. The student council at the high school spearheads pennies for patients. The student council decided to take this on because it's really important and there are a lot of people, especially children our age and younger, affected by Leukemia. Classes at Crosby-Irentian High School have set goals for each grade. We do a grade-wide competition kind of thing to get people's incentives. Our goal is to raise $350 per grade, so if each grade reaches their $350, we get a prize chosen by the class. At the elementary school, the penny war offers a fun way for students to donate. What we do for penny wars is if you were to have pennies or a dollar bill of any sort, then that adds points to your classroom. The pennies dropped in your own classes bucket counts towards your point total, but you can drop silver in other classes buckets to detract from their point total. You can pick any classroom that's on your level of the floor and you go and dump that into their bucket. While the penny war is fun, the students are happy to be donating to a good cause. It's really helpful for the kids that need the help. It's just a good cause, we're not doing it for anything else but to raise money for it. Yeah, sure it may be fun, but that's the whole point of it is to actually raise the money. The students are looking forward to the end of the month when pennies will be counted and donated to help those in need. Reporting from Crosby with this week's Golden Apple, Rachel Johnson, Lakeland News. Over 29,000 schools across the country participate in the pennies for patients program and every year. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.