And the Winners Are ...

"Recipients were encouraged to start saving when they received the package in August of 2009 and then, when December arrived, to use the savings from their coin bank to shop for a new toy to donate to Toys for Tots," Sewell adds.

Providing a bank for recipients to save to help Toys for Tots in December and encouraging them to start doing so with the very pennies attached is something of a stroke of genius in that it gets around the issues that come with using actual coinage in solicitation packages: Do donors perceive it as a waste of money, and is it, indeed, a waste of money? This way, the pennies ostensibly go into the bank and the recipient will use those pennies and lots of other change she has saved in the bank to help Toys for Tots fulfill its mission to provide Christmas toys for children who might not otherwise have them.