Bend teen’s birthday surprise for dad makes plenty of ‘cents’

(Update: Adding video, comments from Serafina Quercini)

Birthday penny project receives community support

BEND, Ore (KTVZ) -- Serafina Quercini is a 14-year-old Bend resident working on a creative gift for her dad’s 70th birthday.

She and her dad share a fascination with pennies.

“So we wanted to find something that was kind of special, or had something to do with the years,” Quercini said Thursday.

Her goal is to create an artistic display of 70 pennies, each representing a year of her dad's life.

She started the project last Saturday.

At first, the teen was pessimistic about finding all the years she needed for the collection. What she didn’t anticipate is how much community support she would receive.

After her mom requested help through social media, she found she definitely wasn’t alone in her penny interest.

“I didn’t think the not anyone was going to respond, but everyone -- a lot of people, went through all their pennies, and one of the houses that we went to had this giant bin of all these old pennies,” Quercini said. “I’d say there were at least 100 in there, maybe even more.”

Many people left bags of pennies on their porches so she could find the 19 years needed to complete the collection.

“It’s really cool that the community stepped up and it was kind of inspiring. I was really surprised,” Quercini said.

Her dad lives in San Francisco, and she says in spite of the news coverage, he's unlikely to find out about the surprise. So she looks forward to seeing his reaction to the gift.

“I would say he’d be really surprised, and I think when it comes to birthday gifts, and when I make something handmade, he’s always really happy, and he’s kind of proud of it. So I hope that he’ll like it,” Quercini said.

Although often forgotten about, she feels pennies are pretty unique.

“if I find like two in a day, i’ll be like, 'Oh my gosh, it’s something lucky!;” Quercini said.