We Create Change: Penny Drive for Clean Water

Have you got a penny jar in your house? Maybe you've been meaning to cash them in at some point before they go out of production forever. But they're heavy, you don't have time to roll them & go to the bank, the change counter machines take a cut anyway... You've got lots of excuses not to cash them in. Here's a great reason to give the old penny a great send-off: donate it to Free the Children's We Create Change campaign to develop clean sources of drinking water for people in developing nations.

I'm sure you know that clean water saves lives through avoiding disease (80 percent of illnesses in developing countries are linked to poor water & sanitation), but did you know that women in many rural African villages spend hours a day walking to clean water sources? Did you know many girls do it as well & it's a major barrier to their attending school? Every day, women around the world spend a cumulative total of 200 million hours collecting water for their families.

So... what can we do about it? Well, I'm participating in Free the Children's blogger challenge this winter. I'm trying to collect as many pennies as I can for the We Create Change project. 2500 pennies = $25 which is enough money to provide clean water for one person for a lifetime. After going around the house & collecting odd pennies here & there, then finding our penny jar, this is the result. A good start on filling our first bag!

Then I mentioned it to my fellow Mount Pleasant Family Centre Board Members & the lovely Patty dropped off a bag of pennies the next day. Check out the stash now:

For the next step, I need your help! If you're in the Vancouver area, can you help us fill this first bag? & the next one? I have a lot of them... Have you got a penny jar in your house full of these soon-to-be-obsolete copper discs? Please email me at lisa.corriveau AT gmail.com if you're interested in donating some of your hoarded pennies, or leave a comment below with contact info & we'll connect. Thanks!