I happened across an article about Coinstar (see www.coinstar.com) in the Wall Street Journal a few weeks ago. Had never heard of this company but it turns out they have coin counting machines in many supermarkets across the nation. One option is to donate the value of your coins to one of the main charities that you can select from. If your charity isn't on the list (OCF isn't), you can simply cash out and send a check or get a money order directly from the store and write it to OCF.

We happened to have a huge can of coins that we've been adding to for the past 10 years with no intention of ever rolling them. It was more to lighten the load from wallets or pockets. So this was a great way to get rid of a bunch of coins (turned out to be just under $175) and give the proceeds to a good cause.

You just press a few buttons to start the process, throw your coins in a hopper (repeatedly in our case) and the machine sorts them and counts them and gives you a voucher at the end that you cash at the store.

I have seen Coinstar in the supermarket but I didnt know that you could donate to charity. I wonder if there is a way we could get OCF on the list.

I stopped using them back in 1999 when my kids took their coins to the supermarket with me and I discovered from the receipt they charged almost 10%. I wanted the money back but they wouldn't give it back.

In your case, it probably would have taken at least thirty minutes or somewhere around $30-$40 an hour to pay someone else to do the deed. Now, if 100 people did that, it would be $3,000-$4,000 to pay someone to buy some more machines, new cars, home, etc. What would that extra cash do for OCF? Maybe a few more mailers, 1/10 of another PSA, another trip to NIH to compaign for early detection funding, 10 dinners with Jack Klugman or Lance Armstrong...

Sorry, just the beancounter in me. I don't have a lot of extra cash since this horrible beast beat me down but I can still find time to spend helping someone. I would be glad to roll them for free if you could get them to me...

Ed

My husband, also a "bean counter" was also put out that Coin Star took 10% of the take of the coins counted. I've found an alternative. My local bank, Wells Fargo, has coin counting machines and if you have an account with them, usually the tellers will be happy to dump the coins in the machine if they aren't unusually busy--for free.

If one chooses to donate, why not donate 100%?

Jen

Yep, most banks have some larger branch that has their own coincounter--and no percent taken off the top!

As Jen so succinctly said, "If one chooses to donate, why not donate 100%?".

Yep, that's what I meant to say in my verbose explanation.

That would definitely make more sense if your bank will do it. I have been banking online for years and haven't been inside a bank for years. Coinstar actually doesn't charge a fee to the main non-profit orgs that you can select from on their machines. When doing what I did, and choosing one not on the list, the non-profit can get reiumbursed for the fee, but it looks like it would be a hassle. Of course now, per the WSJ article, retail companies like amazon.com and several others have gotten in the Coinstar act and let customers cash out with gift certicates (with no fee). It was actually very convenient for someone like me who never enters a bank.