Kids break piggy banks to help fight Covid

SHOT OF HOPE

Kids break piggy banks to help fight Covid

Sindhu.Kannan@timesgroup.com

Chennai:17.05.2021 

They had saved up the money to buy toy cars they could sit in and drive. But when they saw how people were contributing to the fight against the coronavirus, eight-year-old Mithun Sanjith and six-year-old Mithran Sanjay from Chengalpet decided to break their piggy banks and givetheir contents to the government.

The coins and notes they had assiduously put away ever since they drove their dream cars at a mall two years ago made up a tidy sum. Their mother Pramila helped them count the money that came to ₹10,045. Their father Shiva, a journalist with a Tamil daily,

said at first he did not take him seriously when Mithun asked if he could donate the money. The boys really wanted the toy cars, but they had put off a trip to the mall because of the pandemic. But then the children broke open the piggy bank and offered the money, saying they would rather give it away than buy the cars. Since Saturday was Mithun’s birthday, they decided to hand over the money on that day to Chengalpet collector John Louis, who gifted him a book.

The collector lauded Mithun Sanjith, a class three student of V S Star matriculation school, and Mithran Sanjay, a class one student of Good Shepherd public school in Kalpakkam. Shiva said the boys used to get worried watching TV news and hearing him on the phone discussing the pandemic. They would press him not to leave home.

HEART OF GOLD: Mithun Sanjith, 8, and Mithran Sanjay, 6, from Chengalpet donated ₹10,045 to the government’s Covid fund