Father Herbert Jones, O.Carm., counts the windfall.

A "Coin Collection"

by Reverend Herb Jones, O.Carm.

About three months ago a woman who comes to the chapel (in Peabody, Massachusetts) every day sold her home and moved into an apartment. While cleaning out her home she came upon a container of pennies that she had been saving for years, which she then donated to the Chapel. It was a large five gallon plastic bucket and when counted and rolled we discovered that there were over $200.00 in that bucket. It reminded me that I have once read that there are over a billion dollars accumulated in bottles, glasses, piggy banks, boxes, and all sorts of unimaginable containers throughout the country. I thought that I would try to get my hands of some of them.

Since my years in Peru, I have been helping to support a home for “Street Kids” in Cieneguilla, the town outside Lima, Peru, where our novitiate is located. It is a home for about ninety homeless boys between the ages of six and seventeen founded by a lay missionary from Montreal. It occurred to me that some of those unneeded pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters could be put to good use in Peru.

So during the season of Advent, I appealed to all the people who come to our Chapel-in-the-Mall to donate the coins they had laying around their homes to this project. Contrary to the “Silent Collections” usually asked for by the average pastor, I asked for a noisy “coin collection”. I told the people that I would be glad to help them by taking all their unwanted coins off their hands. I would count and roll them—-and, of course, bank them.

The response was phenomenal. Coins flowed into my office in all sorts of containers; bottles, jars, plastic bags, tin cans and even a knapsack. I placed a very large plastic bottle in front of my office door and people dropped in their loose change all through the season of Advent. Many also contributed “silently”, dropping in ones, fives, tens, twenties and even one one-hundred-dollar bill and also a few checks.

In order to roll all the coins after they had been through the counting machine and separated, I held a “coin rolling party” at the Priory and invited my sister, nieces and nephews. Besides supplying the coin wrappers, we also offered hot cider and the cookies and an enjoyable evening ensued. Two of my nephews, though, became discouraged looking at that mountain of coins and took two waste baskets full of pennies to the local Super Market to redeem them at the Coin Star machine there. I said they could do it only if they themselves donated the 9% commission that the Super Market charges. Hey, there’s nothing cheap about me! Those two waste baskets contained $170.00 (that would have been 340 rolls of pennies!).

The final count when all was rolled and tallied amounted to $1,695.50 in coins (6,060 pennies, 2680 nickels 4050 dimes and 1840 quarters), $1,587 in bills and $150.00 in checks, giving a grand total of $3,432.50. The “Coin Collection” was a great success. We counted, separated and rolled over thirteen thousand six hundred and thirty coins. Remember, this money was “extra money” (i.e., not counted on, not deliberately saved, and frequently not even wanted —- just accumulated). Very few people want to be bothered counting and rolling pennies. The people were amused by the idea of a “coin collection” and followed its progress enthusiastically.

There are a lot of pennies out there and they do add up. I recommend the idea for anyone who has a specific project for which they are raising money. There are a billion dollars in coins out there still waiting!