My church has launched a fundraising campaign that, as a side effect, restores a measure of dignity and worth to a long-scorned object: the lowly penny.
Beyond that, it also serves as a reminder for me about the spiritual value of things that might hold little or no monetary utility. A sermon in action, if you will.
The primary intent of the campaign is to raise cash for the restoration fund for the church, Holy Trinity Episcopal. And I should say it has been relaunched, because it first began in mid-2015. The ambitious goal then was to collect 5 million of the coins, which – I’ll do the math for you – would have amounted to $50,000.
By the end of that year, 185,718 pennies – $1,857.18 – had been rounded up for the fund. Not a ton of money, but an encouraging start – that’s a whole lot of pennies.
Alas, the enthusiasm waned. And the effort lay dormant for years until just recently, when the Rev. Bill Dennler, rector of Holy Trinity, announced its revival in a newsletter to parishioners under the heading Pennies from Heaven.
(I love that heading, by the way, which comes from a Depression-era tune of that name. A “song of hope, cheer and promise,” as The Christian Science Monitor once described it. It’s been rattling around in my head, off and on, since then.)
“[M]ost people do not even like pennies,” Father Bill wrote. “How often do you see one, or many, in your travels while walking? How often do you bend over to pick them up? I suspect that the answers are, to the first question, often and to the second, not very often.”
Pennies weren’t always so disdained. They once rated much higher in purchasing power, and hence in our esteem. Ben Franklin famously advised that to save one is to earn one. A penny was also considered sufficient legal tender to purchase another person’s thoughts.
Decades – centuries – of inflation have taken their toll. There’s even a group, Citizens to Retire the U.S. Penny, that would have it done away with. Chief among its reasons is the cost: The U.S. Mint’s 2022 report stated that each of the billions of pennies produced each year costs more than twice its worth, 2.72 cents.
(It also costs 10.41 cents to make a nickel, but let’s stick to one coin at a time.)
In addition to the financial payoff, Father Bill optimistically envisions health benefits accruing if people actually set forth on walks with the intention of spotting and harvesting pennies for Holy Trinity. But the campaign isn’t dependent solely on that method.
“Whether we collect them from the change we receive or we try and find pennies, over time they add up,” he noted.
What with one thing or another, they’ve certainly piled up around my house, stashed in containers here and there. I will add them, along with others that come my way, to the Holy Trinity collection with no appreciable impact on my financial status.
Aside from raising my penny-consciousness, the process has also started me thinking about other simple ways to make the world a slightly better place – and ourselves slightly better people – without any significant cost. Among them:
• Offer a smile to strangers on the street. In the grocery store aisle. At the doctor’s office. Wherever.
• At least once a day, compliment someone for something done well. Or even not so well done. Nobody’s perfect.
• When people are giving their point of view on some topic, or sharing their feelings about something that happened, actually listen. Practice empathy.
• Along that line, when you think someone is off base, resist the urge to explain why you’re right.
• Send a message or email or message to someone you haven’t heard from in a while. Ask how he or she is doing.
• Issue a reprieve to any spider, fly or other hapless bug that enters your living space. Earn karma points by trying to relocate it outdoors. (Note: This does not apply to fleas, which are alien invaders.)
• Rejoice in a warm, sunny day. Or a cold, rainy day. Rejoice in any and every day.
• Encourage a child or young person every chance you get.
• Apologize when you need to, and maybe even when you don’t. It benefits all involved, when it’s genuine. Here’s a starter template: “I’m sorry I…”
The list isn’t inclusive. You can probably think of various others. What the actions have in common is, they’re all pennies from heaven, just like the ones we’re collecting for Holy Trinity. They add up, too. And they don’t cost one red cent.
Joe Rogers is a former writer for The Tennessean and editor for The New York Times. He is retired and living in Nashville.