The Terrell, Texas, Kiwanis Club sponsors three K-Kids Clubs, with about 300 members throughout one of the local elementary schools. Together, the students raised more than US$10,000 through this past school year, raising the money pennies and dollars at a time.

The Kiwanis club and Faculty Advisor Margaret Davis, who is K-Kids district administrator for Texas-Oklahoma, spent a lot of time educating students about The Eliminate Project. The students were immediately inspired. They started with three simple fundraisers: penny war, mud pit-tug of war and jeans days.

During the jeans days, all the students paid US$2 to wear jeans in their all-uniform school. The students learned they had the power to change someone’s life even with a small amount—and it put the focus on a community outside of their own. At the second grade campus, the students paid US$5 each—and collectively raised US$1,000— to watch the teachers do a tug-of-war over a large hole that the teachers had dug and filled with water. The sixth grade students’ main fundraiser was the penny war.