Road Pennies...

Some of you may recall a similar posting from my old blog. This notion comes to me every spring as the melting snow uncovers loose change lost during the winter. Generally this consists of mostly pennies and generally they tend to stay there until they are swept up with the rest of the debris when the streets are cleaned.

Last year when I witnessed the first crop of Road Pennies emerging with the tulips and daffodils I could not help wondering what a person from a third world country might think of a place where people will leave money lying in the street. So I began to pick them up and save them in an empty container. My plan is to give them to Oxfam once I am finished my program here at MUN.
Here is my take from today. It might seem like a sort of trivial thing to do. After all just how much money will I actually find? But I still do it for a couple of reasons. The first is that no matter how little good it may do - it does no harm and requires very little effort on my part. Who knows - maybe other people will start to do the same; maybe even through in spare pennies and loose change they have kicking around in various jars and containers or collecting dust somewhere.

The second reason is because it gives me a sense of hope and there is little I value above that. Hope is not the solution to problems. It is merely the possibility of solutions being found and as such it is essential for change. To ignore any opportunity for hope in this world is to accept the darkness and to deny the existence of candles, even small ones.

So I collect coins and gather hope.