I’m a terrible person. I keep the pennies I receive from those charity mailings which are trying to save the world’s people/planet/penguins. I know that the pennies are supposed to guilt me into sending a big check to the Save the Spotted West Nebraskan Cougar fund, but I find the scheme so aggravating that I don’t respond.
I feel awful for a nanosecond until l remind myself that I’m a person who regularly gives to charity. And those glued pennies which clink in my mailbox every day will all eventually go back to a good cause -albeit probably not the charity which gave them to me in the first place. (By the way, how many of these mailed pennies do you think are tossed in the trash every year?)
I certainly sympathize with non-profits, trying to raise money for their cause. And for a while, my ASPCA address labels were a welcome gift in my mailbox. But these days, it seems that I get all sorts of “stuff” from these charities, from notepads to holiday cards to posters of chimpanzees. (What, exactly, was I supposed to do with this poster? I’m still not sure, but I turned into it wrapping paper for my nephew.) I don’t want/need any of this stuff, but I understand that the Save the Spotted West Nebraskan Cougar charities are only trying to get my attention.
But perhaps a better way to get someone’s attention is to air a sad commercial, complete with Sarah McLachlan’s “Arms of an Angel” ballad. Oh wait…
Let’s just all agree to keep the pennies in the charity cycle…and wherever they land, they land. Guilt dissolved, as long as the pennies don’t end up in your ice cream fund.
Photocredit: Peter Dazeley
