Friday, May 2, 2003 | 3:31 a.m.
When Sig Rogich Middle School math teacher Rob Burgman gave his students the unusual assignment of looking for discarded pennies, he was trying to teach them about the value of money and missed opportunities.
He never dreamed the lesson would turn into a schoolwide loose change charity drive that through last week had raised enough money to send at least three disadvantaged Southern Nevada youths to summer camp.
"It shows that if you give kids leadership and some guidance, they will run with it, they will blossom," said Burgman, 46, whose teaching methods are described as everything from borderline crazy to brilliantly innovative.
The Pennies From Heaven drive is slated to end May 15, with the proceeds going to the Las Vegas Sun Summer Camp Fund. To date about $600 has been raised.
"I told my students to look on the ground, in couches, clothing, parking lots, anywhere change is discarded," Burgman said. "After seven days of searching, I told them that each penny represents opportunity, and if you fail to pick it up, that's a missed opportunity.
"Any missed opportunity can turn out to be the opportunity of a lifetime."
A week after he gave the mid-January assignment, his 165 students had collected $30 of unwanted change.
The students asked Burgman, "Why stop? Why not keep looking and perhaps raise a significant amount of money that can make a difference for some people?"
"When I got the assignment, I was kind of confused because no teacher had ever given me such an assignment before," said Samantha Gass, 13, a seventh grade student at the Summerlin school.
"I started looking on sidewalks, in my room, near my dad's office. I found about $2.75 that first week. It made me start to think about what Mr. Burgman said about opportunities and how we miss them because we are too lazy or we don't care to pick up a penny."
Gass, who says she does not get an allowance from her parents, said she is grateful that her parents provide for her needs, especially when she sees disadvantaged teens and homeless children as she is driven around town.
This was not the first time Burgman had given his students an assignment they did not immediately understand. As part of a geometry lesson, he once had a class build a dome out of toothpicks and marshmallows that would support the weight of a softball.
"I've come to learn if Mr. Burgman gives us an assignment, he's got a pretty good reason for doing it, even if it may seem crazy at first," said Kaitlyn Seberger, 13, an eighth grader and president of the school's Future Educators of America group that Burgman instituted.
"I was amazed at how much change was brought in and how this has caught on."
Seberger, who serves as treasurer for the project, can relate to hardship. When she was 3, her father died of cancer, leaving her mother to raise her as a single parent, she said.
"I have seen so many kids snap their fingers and get what they want from their parents, but if my mother could not afford something I wanted, I had to do things like baby-sit to earn the money," Seberger said. "It has made me appreciate things a lot more.
"Also, my mother does the best she can, which makes me more fortunate than some other kids, especially some of the ones we are trying to send to camp."
The students recently started selling candy bars and bottled water at a buck apiece to add to the penny drive.
As the huge pretzel jars started filling with pennies in Burgman's classroom, he and the students had to determine a worthy charity as recipient.
They already had decided to use the money to send poor kids to camp. The Sun, which established its camp fund in 1970, was a logical choice.
"It was so heart-warming when I got that call from the teacher and heard what his students had done," said Dee McConnell, coordinator of the Sun's camp fund.
"More than 90 percent of our donors are individuals who send in $5 and $25, so we depend on small gifts. These children are learning about money and responsibility, and about helping people less fortunate than themselves."
McConnell said the Sun sends, on average, 700 to 800 children ages 7 to 15 to one-week camps each summer. This year the goal is to send a record 1,000 local children to 13 camps in Nevada, California and Arizona.
It costs $190 to $350 to send each child to camp, McConnell said.
"This is such an important program because no matter how old you get you always remember your camp experience," said McConnell, who went to camp at age 11. "Going to the mountains, getting away from the city -- it's just such a fun experience."
Doing charitable deeds is nothing new to Burgman or Rogich students. The school is named after a local advertising executive and political adviser who founded R & R Advertising and today runs Rogich Communications.
Last Thanksgiving the school collected 128 boxes of food for the Salvation Army and last Christmas it raised $2,500 and collected 1,200 gifts for the needy through its "Holiday Blessing" campaign.
"Mr. Burgman is such a dynamic teacher and motivator," said Susan Tsukamoto, Rogich principal, whose daughter was a student in Burgman's class. "He gets the students and parents involved in activities. He makes them think."
Burgman, who also teaches Spanish and coaches the Rogich Rough Riders' basketball team, began getting students involved in community events and fund-raisers three years ago to teach them empathy for others.
"As I talk to my classes about being less concerned about self and more concerned about others, I also tell them the horrible truth that so many kids face today -- alcohol- and drug-addicted parents, abuse, homelessness, hunger and a lack of opportunity for advancement," Burgman said.
"I teach our children how to recognize and appreciate our abundant blessings and to realize we have a great responsibility to share and help others."
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