Article By Lila Moore
The STEM Ambassadors, a service-based club at Davie, hosted their annual Penny War from November 27th to December 8th, 2023. The Penny War is a competition between all fourth periods at Davie to see who can raise the most money by collecting coins. English teacher Kathy Edminson’s AP Language & Composition class emerged victorious in this competition, ultimately earning donuts for their efforts. Altogether, the school raised $189.03.
Edminson’s class was full of motivated juniors. While they worked together overall, they had many different approaches and ideas to achieve success in raising coins. Addi Wilson shared that John Holcomb, a student in the AP Lang class, encouraged and reminded his classmates every day to donate money. The class also shared that since it was the season of giving, they were determined to give as much as possible. “Most of the class motivation to win was trying to see who would donate most,” said junior Dylan Lane. Overall, the class concluded that they were most motivated by donuts and the bragging rights that come with winning.
The funds from the Penny War are being put into the fund for the school’s new Memorial Garden. Will Marrs, teacher of the year, decided to develop a Memorial Garden as his gift to the administration. The Memorial Garden will be on the Davie High campus and include plaques for staff members and students Davie has lost. Marrs has been working nonstop to start the process of building this garden.
“I basically just formed the committee, and then everybody that’s on it—a group of about 10 of us—we started the project this semester, and we’re starting by designing it and figuring out what we want there. So we are moving towards building these little plaques as like student and staff names on” Marrs commented.
The Penny War preparation has many steps, including providing bags to all the fourth periods, collecting those bags, and counting the money. The members of the STEM ambassadors worked for many flex times to accomplish all this. Silas Marion, a junior and the secretary, shared his favorite part. “My favorite part of the penny war was handing out the bags to the teachers and seeing them plan ways to get their classes involved. I loved seeing a lot of teachers get competitive when it came to collecting as much money as they could.” Silas shared.
Service projects are an important mission of the STEM ambassadors. They have done many things to help the community and school, including Thanksgiving cards for NICU parents, hot chocolate stations for teachers, teacher appreciation stations, the Penny Wars, and most recently, Valentine bags for teachers. Service projects hold different importance for the many different members of the club.
“Service projects are important to me because even if I am doing something small, I like to feel like I am making a difference!” sophomore Ava Jane Tomlinson says.
The STEM ambassadors have collected many members over the years, and many love the mission of the club. The club has an unwavering focus on helping and providing for others. Chris De Vicente Guerrero, a Co-President of the club, spoke on why he was drawn to the group and became a student leader in it.
“I decided to become a member of Stem Ambassadors as I wanted to directly impact the STEM student body. I find this club important to me as I’ve gotten to get closer with classmates and I’ve gotten to learn how to be a leader!”