Spare Change with a Huge Impact

I've noticed that even though we decided on supporting only 12 charities this year, we've been donating to quite a few more with barely a second thought.

For instance, at the McDonald's, we gave our spare change to the Ronald McDonald House Charities at the drive-thru window. At the Food Lion, while shopping for groceries, we gave $1.00 to their Shop & Care program benefitting Easter Seals UCP (United Cerebal Palsy) in North Carolina. We stopped in at AC Moore and donated a buck towards their Easter Seals Act for Autism project. My daughter's school had a fundraiser for the Childood Leukemia Foundation. We also saved our boxtops for Boxtops for Education PTA fundraiser.

In 2009, Ronald McDonald House Charities raised over $18 million from the spare change boxes on their countertops. Last year, Food Lion raised over 3 million dollars in four short weeks through the Shop & Care program. Boxtops for Education has raised over 320 million dollars for schools - nine million in our state of North Carolina alone.

Small change CAN really make a difference! Literally, the coins in your car, together with the millions of other coins in millions of other cars, can help change the world and make a tremendous difference in the lives of so many. So, don't pass up the opportunity to give a little spare change to those boxes on store countertops and know that you have a hand in something great!