Monday, November 30, 1998

Saving pennies could develop into real money

What's a penny worth nowadays? Not a lot, to most of us. In fact, more often than not, pennies are just a bother, something that gets in the way.

They fill up our pockets and our purses, and they jangle around and weigh us down. They pile up on our dressers, and we dump them on the kitchen counter in buckets and jars, which then obstruct meal preparations and are pushed back and forth until they create too big a nuisance to avoid any longer.

That's about the point at which we break down and bring them to Goodfellows.

Unlike the rest of us, Goodfellows thinks pennies are valuable, too valuable to brush aside. Not so much each one in itself. But when you begin putting a whole bunch of them together - well, to paraphrase an old line about government spending, when you get a thousand here and a thousand there, you start getting into real money.

And real money is what Goodfellows can use to help give a long list of youngsters a happier Christmas this year.

A thousand or so families that have fallen on hard times are asking for the generosity of the community in helping their children receive clothes and food and toys, and it doesn't take more than pocket change to realize the Goodfellows' goal of making those dreams a reality.

It doesn't take huge donations to make a difference for other people's lives. The jars and buckets of pennies add up. And when they're all piled together, the Christmas cheer they spread transcends what each individual would be able to accomplish with just his or her spare change.

If you haven't started saving pennies yet, there's still time. Those who have already accumulated a stack might consider bringing them along when you come downtown to the annual City Sidewalks celebration Tuesday night. There'll be a collection going on then at the corner of North 2nd and Cypress.