Put Down Your Phone And Pick Up Pennies

So, Phillip and I decided to try something new this year. And when I say THIS year, I mean we started plotting on day one. January 1st. We’ve been blessed this year. Very blessed. Phillip got a massive promotion and people are buying my books and bears. We live beneath our means, so we have a little gravy….so to speak. But, knowing going into the new year that we would be pretty much ok, we focused on moments, lessons and lives from our past. We wanted to help.

I’m fond of The Second Harvest Food Bank. It was about ten years ago, and I needed some help. I was homeless, hungry, teddy bears had yet to be knit. I was lost. I walked in and no one asked a question of me, no one wanted more than for me to eat something. Anything. Now.

I didn’t take more than I needed, and had a few pennies in my pocket and tossed them in the donation jar. It was all I had, but those pennies seemed meaningless to me then. What can three cents get you in this life? (So much more than you’ll ever know….)

Things in life started to get better for me. I started writing more, started knitting these interesting little teddy bears. The next thing you know, it’s about 10 years later….and that help that they gave me catapulted me towards moments in life I didn’t think I was worthy of.

So! Earlier this year, on January 1st 2023, Phillip and I decided we’d pick up every penny, every nickle, every dime we came across. We’re both pedestrians, we don’t own a car. We walk everywhere we go. And we hate cell phone culture so much we don’t look at our phones when on a trek.

No, we look down at our path, passing and picking up more coins than you could think imaginable. We decided we would use all these lost and forgotten coins to donate to the food bank….and by the looks of it, we’ve got quite the stash! At first, it was a dismal clump of pennies in the box, but by the end of the year, it was full of quarters, too!

We’re running up to Publix in a few days to cash in the coins, then donate the amount to The Second Harvest Food Bank. I think we have at LEAST $100 in coins we found while walking….Imagine that. Free money found for good use while walking. And someone is going to have a meal that just might save their life, their soul, their joy in being alive. Three pennies 10 years ago ended up doing something amazing.

So, try it next year! January 1st is just around the corner! Put down your phone and pick up pennies. 🙂

Merry Christmas!