Students, parents and teachers at Sagle Elementary School raised over $1,500 for the Bonner Community Food Bank in a penny drive this month.

The original fundraising goal was $300, said Kathy Berget, Sagle Elementary principal.

The school has done some sort of benefit for the food bank, be it a penny drive or a food drive, for as long as she can remember, said Deanna Giard, a third grade teacher at Sagle who organized the event this year.

Giard has worked for Sagle for 11 years. This year, there was an especially generous outpouring of support from both parents and students.

Students in each class competed for who could raise the most money, she said, and students came in daily with more change and want to know the total.

The two classes that won got ice cream on the last day of school, Giard said, but there was more to it than that.

Each day, more donations came in and Giard counted coins while students did quiet reading.

“Every single day they were pulling pennies out of their pocket and bringing coins,” she said. “They wanted to know the total. We kept a running tally.”

During the drive, Giard also went out to the parking lot with a Santa stocking one afternoon while parents were picking up their children and asked for donations as they drove by. She collected around $86 in total.

The two winning classes were her third grade class, she said, which raised $153 with an additional $100 donation from a former teacher, and a fifth grade class that raised over $200.

Bergert said many students donated their own money.

“We were overwhelmed with the generosity and what we got,” she said. “I had one sixth-grade student who brought in two five dollar bills.”