A local girl hopes to help children battling cancer with 40,000 pennies she has collected.

Ryleigh Stephenson is a second grade student at Lone Oak Elementary School, she brought in 40,000 pennies for the school’s 8th annual penny war.

The money raised will go to Nate’s Wishes, which gifts backpacks to kids battling cancer at Vanderbilt’s Children Hospital and Norton’s in Louisville.

According to Ryleigh, her dad’s co-workers donated pennies to her and also got help from the Tooth Fairy, she says, “After I lost my teeth, I found a bag of pennies and two dimes. I put the dimes in the kindergarten’s and put the pennies in ours and it kind helped ours go up but we were already in the lead. Then the kindergarten took the lead. And we’re back in the lead.”

Now Ryleigh is already collecting pennies for next year.

The penny wars raised more than $25,000 for Nate’s Wishes.

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Verse of the Day

“So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.”

Luke 2:16-20