ARLINGTON — It was a silly scene that made some serious money.

Post Middle School has conducted “Pennies for Patients” coin drives for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society for the past half-dozen years, but on April 15, they raised funds for the first time by offering students a shot at their peers and teachers with pies to the face.

Post Middle School teacher Robin Foster credited eighth-grade ASB Secretary Shanelle Shirey and Treasurer Bella Tift with coming up with the Vaudevillian idea, which was met with some skepticism initially, but yielded measurable results.

“Last year’s Pennies for Patients raised just short of $500,” Foster said. “This year’s final total was $603, all of it in small change. Even the Pennies for Patients people told us that they’d never heard of anyone fundraising for them with pies to the face before. I told them we’d be doing it again next year, because it’s a big deal.”

Denise Jackson’s seventh-grade class collected the most money of any class, at slightly more than $100. All the donations were collected within a week, and each class earned the right to launch a single pie in the face of an ASB officer or a teacher for every $10 that class raised.

“We had a lot of teachers who found themselves volunteered for the event,” Foster laughed. “Each class would select the student from their class who they wanted to have throw the pies, and the looks on all those kids’ faces were hilarious.”

Although it took close to an hour and a half to clean up the cafeteria after the lunchtime event, Foster deemed the extra work well worth it.

“We did make one mistake, though,” Foster said. “We’d made the pies with Cool Whip, but we used the french vanilla, which was yellow and got all over,” he laughed.

“It was messy, but definitely worth it,” said Shirley, who took a few pies to the face herself.