FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Mark Weller/Peter Mirijanian
September 24, 2001
(800) 561-7909/(202) 429-4017
Americans for Common Cents (ACC) extends its deepest sympathies
to those who were directly affected by the September 11 attacks and
joins our fellow Americans in the pursuit of a future where similar
atrocities are not possible here or elsewhere.
Thousands of
individuals, families, and support organizations will need significant
help in these sad and difficult times. As families and schools look for
ways to make donations to fund special resources and personnel, ACC
wants to remind the public of the power of the penny. Large individual
gifts still account for a large portion of the dollars raised by the
nation’s philanthropies. But at many nonprofits, monies generated from
small fundraising drives are important as well.
One way the
public and students can contribute to the relief effort is through penny
harvests that motivate numbers of citizens to make small donations that
add up to big dollars. Schools, and students in particular, have
historically utilized penny drives to fuel fundraising for various
needs, ranging from community feeding assistance programs to computers
and field trips.
To this end, ACC has drafted a “Penny Fundraising Handbook”
(www.pennies.org) that can guide adults and students on how they can
conduct their own coin drive, including the collecting of pennies and
turning them into greenbacks. Below are Internet links from The New
York Times and an online site that provide a sampling of organizations
offering assistance and information about where to make donations earned
through penny harvests.
www.nytimes.com/national/resources/index.html#relief
www.helping.org
ACC encourages individuals to conduct a penny harvest of their own,
turn the coins into dollars, and then donate the money to a charity
assisting the terrorist attack victims. Individually, pennies may not
seem like much. But, taken together, they make a critical difference
for organizations dedicated to serving the needs of our nation and its
people.
ACC is a broad-based coalition of business, charitable,
and numismatic organizations dedicated to keeping the penny. The
coalition was formed in 1990 in response to Congressional threats to
eliminate the one-cent coin.