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HARRISBURG, April 9 - For the second time this week, students have rallied to the cause of preserving the 138 Pennsylvania monuments and markers on the historic Gettysburg battlefield.

Thursday, at a ceremony in Erie, the seventh-grade history class of teacher Anna Marie Amendola at Westlake Middle School presented state Rep. Harry Readshaw, D-Allegheny, organizer of the movement to preserve the Pennsylvania monuments, with a check for $1,095 to aid the effort. The students raised the money through candy sales.

Last year, Amendola's previous class sent a check for more than $100 to help Readshaw's campaign, which now has raised better than $150,000 - which is approximately one-fifth of the funds needed to repair and clean the monuments and endow them for future maintenance.

"It is especially gratifying to see young people so enthusiastic about saving a piece of their state and national history," said Readshaw. "Whenever they visit Gettysburg during their lifetime and look upon a monument honoring a Pennsylvania regiment or individual, they'll have the satisfaction of knowing that they personally played an important role in keeping those monuments standing."

One day earlier, a fifth-grade class from East Pennsboro Middle School in Cumberland County presented Readshaw with a check for $1,420 to complete funding for the restoration and endowment of the monument to the 148th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry in the Wheatfield portion of the Adams County battlefield.