What Do You Do With Your Leftover Coins?

Posted on by Marcia Mayne

What do you do with your leftover coins?

Whenever I’m go on vacation, I keep some leftover coins for my collection and spend the rest at the airport duty free shops. But no matter how hard I try, I usually find a few more when I unpack.

Since currency exchanges and banks don’t buy back leftover coins, I usually add them to my collection. But that’s becoming quite sizable and very heavy.

Some of my leftover money

On my last trip, I was pleased to hear Virgin Airlines’ appeal for leftover coins — but I didn’t have any, or so I thought. (I found a few Euros when I got home.)

Later, I did some research and discovered UNICEF’s Change for Good® program.

Change for Good is a partnership between UNICEF and the international airline industry. It was established in 1987 to help UNICEF’s mission to reduce the number of preventable childhood deaths.

Change for Good allows passengers on nine participating airlines to donate their leftover U.S. and foreign currencies to flight attendants on board and at Admirals Clubs and Flagship Lounges worldwide.

The airlines participating are Aer Lingus, Alitalia, All Nippon Airways (ANA), American Airlines, Asiana Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Finnair, Japan Airlines (JAL) and QANTAS.

Virgin Airlines and British Airways have their own programs.

If you find yourself with leftover coins when you get home, don’t panic — you can still donate. Send them to:

U.S. Fund for UNICEF

Attn: Change for Good

125 Maiden Lane

According to UNICEF’s website, because donations of leftover foreign coins are processed in bulk by a third party vendor, the acknowledgement you’ll receive for your donation will, unfortunately, not specify the amount of your gift. But you shouldn’t let that dissuade you from donating.

The global Change for Good program has generated over 90 million dollars for UNICEF. That’s no small change!

I can’t think of a better way to get rid of leftover coins.

12 comments on “What Do You Do With Your Leftover Coins?”

  1. Marcia, what a noble cause! I love UNICEF. It’s my favorite charity and this program for left over change sounds fantastic. Unfortunately, I don’t get to indulge in exotic travel that leaves me with any leftover change but I’ll be sure and pass along the information to acquaintances that do travel. Thank you for sharing!

  2. You’re welcome, Bella! It’s a fantastic idea and to think that they’ve been able to raise so much from ‘small change’ is so fabulous.
    Thanks for the visit,
    Marcia

  3. Oh… foreign leftover coins… I guess this doesn’t relate to me much, but I still think it’s cool!

  6. You’re welcome, Elizabeth.
    A pretty brilliant idea. And just look how much they’ve received!
    Marcia

  7. Great idea! I think I left a comment on this sometime ago… Didn’t your comments transfer with your blog? Oh girl 🙂

  8. The comments never got transferred — I’m working on it. I’ve exchanged a few emails with Disqus, plan to work more on it tomorrow.
    Thanks, Elizabeth!

  9. Another to support UNICEF even with old money:
    In case you have been travelling during a lot 80ies and 90ies and still got former european cuerrencies like German mark, Spanish peseta or Austrian schilling, Irish pound, Slovenian tolar, a.s.o. you can donate these leftovers to UNICEF via euromoney24.com/donations

  11. That`s great and thanks for your positive reply.

    Thing is, most people have a few but almost everyone has some – so it´s kind of a motivation thing to get many many people to donate these lefetovers.

    In case there are any additional questions you and others as well can reach me (or my colleague) anytime: info@euromoney24.com or via feedback form on the site.

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