Magic can help ease hunger

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/11/2011 (5256 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Pennies are literally beginning to flow in from all corners of the city, and beyond.

And in the days ahead volunteers helping our Free Press Pennies from Heaven campaign will begin the collection and rolling of the coins.

We’ve been asking you to bring in coins and folding money into our drop off locations across the city — don’t worry, we will continue to ask you until the end of this year’s campaign.

You can go to any of the city’s Walmart department stores. You can go to any of the RBC branches. Our giant penny is inside Portage Place. You can come to the Free Press itself. And, a new one, you can go to our Free Press News Cafe.

Many of our bins have the photo of myself with Doc Walker, the award winning band that is helping us this year.

But we don’t want those pennies to sit in those bins too long — we want them to help people.

That’s why the Cheer Board’s head elf, Kai Madsen, will soon have volunteers zipping around the city picking up coins.

It’s not an easy task — after all we collected 13 tons of just pennies last year — but they’re up to it.

They know those pennies turn into dollars which quickly turn into thousands of dollars.

And then, those pennies can turn into magic.

The Cheer Board can turn them into a hamper complete with a turkey, fixings, and wrapped gifts. Winnipeg Harvest can turn them into food which can help feed people for weeks past Christmas.

All it takes is for you, young and old, to start looking for coins.

At the same time, my mail box is starting to fill up with people sending cheques.

First prize goes to Mary Kolaski for sending in her cheque first. Actually, I think the ink wasn’t even dry on this year’s first column when the cheque came in. Her cheque, and the others we’ve already received and hope to receive in future weeks, will help many of our local hungry.

I recall during my first Pennies campaign smiling when I read the memo line on one of the cheques: “that’s a lot of pennies”.

Pennies are the backbone of our campaign, but without people writing cheques or dropping larger coins and bills into our bins, we wouldn’t be able to help both the Christmas Cheer Board and Winnipeg Harvest create as much magic as they can.

And when you send us a cheque, you’ll receive a tax receipt from either the Cheer Board or Harvest.

So what are you waiting for? It’s time for you to make your own magic to help our hungry.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca