The Streets of New York City...

. . . are full of spare change, which is a good thing for The Penny Project!

Below is an e-mail from a friend/penny convert. I came home from a 2-week international vacation to find this fantastic message waiting in my inbox. I absolutely love it when people who used to think, "Pennies...from the street? No way!" end up sending me stories like this. Ah, the power of the penny!

I’m happy to report that on a recent trip to the city I found 20 cents. Not bad for a few days! The breakdown is as follows – 5 pennies, one nickel, and one dime. I’m pretty sure that adds up to 20 cents but I may be wrong (I’m a little tired today).

I do have to tell you a funny little story about one of the pennies. First let me start off by saying that I never used to pick up change on the street, regardless of the size of the coin. I might not even pick up a dollar bill! But I’ve changed my ways for your project even though sometimes I’m a little embarrassed that I’ll stop in my tracks or go out of my way for spare change. I’m sure that must be some sort of psychological disorder, but talking to a shrink about it would cost me more pennies than I have so I’m comfortable with my embarrassment when it comes to picking up change on the sidewalk. So now onto my story (don’t worry, the information I just divulged is somewhat related) . . .

I’d already found a few pennies while I was in New York and then I got on the elevator and saw one right at the edge of the elevator door. This penny was in danger and I was afraid the door would cover it up and lose it when it closed. Now, if I’d been alone in the elevator I would have moved quickly to rescue it. But there were two other people who got in after me and I was too embarrassed to jump after a penny in front of other people, especially in a nice apartment building in NY (see, I told you the earlier information was relevant). So I watched the people to see what floors they selected and was glad to see that they were stopping on the 8th and 9th floors and I was going up to 12. That would give me some alone time in the elevator to grab the penny as long as the door didn’t sweep it away or someone else didn’t grab it on their way out. I had my strategy so now all I could do was wait. I held my breath a little each time one of them got off and was pleased when the door closed after stopping on the 9th floor – the penny was still there and I was alone to rescue it! Clearly I’m not the only one with this penny picking-up disorder, which has thankfully added an extra penny to your count for 2008!

Just had to share that. I hope you had a great vacation and maybe even found some spare change. Not sure what the conversion rates are like these days but whatever you find has to be worth something!