On February 4^th, 2013 the Canadian Mint will cease to distribute the Canadian penny.

Earth’s General Store wants not only to reduce the footprint of these coins, help to eliminate the cost to our government when making them (1.6 cents to produce a 1 cent token – not good fiscal responsibility), and but to channel this currency into doing some good locally.

Earth's General Store has installed a pail in our store to collect pennies and will deposit them to our local Servus Credit Union when full and the funds raised will be donated to the Edmonton Food Bank. We encourage anyone to drop off their extra pennies to fill the pail – get those pennies out of the jars on your dresser, from the depth of your sofa, from wherever people are stockpiling them and put them out into the world to do some good.

It is estimated that it will take about 30,000 pennies to fill our 20L pail. That’s about $300 and would weigh approximately 75 kilogram.

- Posted January 29th, 2013