Evangeline Parish School Board Meeting March 11, 2020 Eva Waits , coordinator with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, reported Wednesday to the Evangeline Parish School Board how our parish public schools did in raising money for the “Pennies for Patients” fund raiser. Some 715 schools participated nationwide including every school in Evangeline Parish. The program which took place last December asks students to donate pennies and loose change to help patients being treated with these type of cancers. The children in these high performing schools will be rewarded with “dress down”days and those schools will receive Amazon gift cards. Waits announced the winners in three categories: the large school with the highest amount collected was Bayou Chicot while the small school with the highest amount collected was Chataignier Elementary. The overall winning school bringing the largest amount of donations was James Stephens Elementary School which collected $2438 in pennies and loose change. Parish wide, the fund raiser brought in $13,034. In other business, Chief Financial Officer Amy Lafleur informed the school board that sales collections for the month of February increased by $14,000 over the month of February in 2019. Overall, sales tax collections, increased $229,087 year to date. In other action the school board: --joined Supt. Of Schools Darwan Lazard in congratulating Mitzi Fontenot as Louisiana Business Educator of the Year; --received news of a meeting of Future Educators of Evangeline Parish, an effort by local educators to encourage students to go into education; --approved $14,601 from the non-public textbook fund to purchase student textbooks for Sacred Heart High School;