PENNIES SOUGHT FOR SHADY DEAL : PUPILS WILL RAISE FUNDS FOR SHELTER.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

In the Santa Clarita Valley, where withering summer heat is a fact of life and shade could be considered a precious commodity, schoolchildren are learning how to purchase relief from the sun.

The pupils at Rosedell Elementary School are collecting pennies to pay for a covered shelter, so their peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches won't melt, their milk won't go sour and they won't perspire as they eat their lunches.

On Tuesday night, the Saugus Union School District board of trustees agreed to split the $14,350 cost of the project with the Rosedell PTA, meaning the students must collect 717,500 pennies to pay the school's half.

Summer temperatures in the 90s and 100s are routine across the valley; compounding the problem is the fact that classes at Rosedell will resume Aug. 19, more than a month before the summer swelter is likely to give way to cooler fall weather.

Rosedell PTA member Fran Fecske borrowed an idea recently used at Leona Cox Elementary School, where students collected a million pennies as part of a math project.

``I thought: `Gosh darnit, we should collect pennies,' '' said Fecske, whose son and two daughters are current and former Rosedell students ``People throw pennies away. Kids will have fun collecting them,'' she reasoned.

At its June 7 meeting, the PTA voted to make the lunch shelter its fund-raising project for the coming school year. Fecske visited Rosedell classrooms a few days later to ask the youngsters to fill empty gallon milk jugs with pennies.

`` `Wouldn't it really be neat if you could sit in the shade?' '' Fecske said she asked each class. ``I said: `Who wants to help me get shade?' And they all raised their hands.''

Since Rosedell opened in 1967, there has never been a covered area for the children to eat, said district Superintendent Joe Fazio, who was the school's first principal.

``We had originally planted mulberry trees, and the idea was that in the summer they would provide shade and in the winter the leaves would fall and we would benefit from the warmth of the sun,'' Fazio recalled.

Some creative measures to beat the heat have been tried, with the school staff positioning the lunch benches in whatever shadows the school buildings cast.

Fecske said the need for a shelter has been a recurring topic nonetheless. ``It's brought up when the weather is hot, and when it cools down (the issue) just fades,'' she said.

PTA members felt that shouldering that cost would prevent the organization from funding its annual student field trips, assemblies, carnivals and other special events. That's why the PTA decided to involve Rosedell's 745 kindergarten- through sixth-grade pupils in the effort.

Kelly Bergland said she and her husband, Kirk, can't hang on to their pocket change for very long because their fifth- and fourth-grade daughters and second-grade son have become relentless coin collectors. ``They were going to just go for the copper, but I said: You might as well take the nickels and the dimes and the quarters, too,' '' Bergland said.

Erin, Sallye and Thomas Bergland also have canvassed their street - ``The neighbors are going to stop coming to the door,'' their mother joked - taking time out to count the money or weigh the jug to gauge their progress, she said.

CAPTION(S):

Photo

Photo: (Color) From left, Erin, Thomas and Sallye Berglandare among Rosedell students saving coins to help buy a school lunch shelter.

Tom Mendoza/Daily News