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Penny Lovers of America
P.O. Box 6141
Somerset, NJ 08873-6141
732-873-3827
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A Penny Saved is a Penny for Scholarship Agencies
COURIER NEWS
By Evelyn Apgar Alicia Grey
FRANKLIN (Somerset) - When most people look at a penny, they see an almost worthless coin. When Dick Barber looks at a penny, he sees scholarships.
Barber is the founder of Penny Lovers of America, a 10-year old nonprofit organization based in the Somerset section of Franklin "to promote character, scholarship and patriotism among the nation's young people." A former staff member of the Rev. Leon Sullivan's Opportunities Industrialization Center in Pitts-burgh and former deputy executive director of the National Associa-tion for the Advancement of Col-ored People, Barber urges people to collect pennies by the pound to help existing scholarship-granting agencies. When collected by the pound, Barber said, the money mounts up quickly. One pound of pennies equals $1.64; one million savers can raise $1.64 million.
Besides helping college students, Barber, who now serves as director of purchasing at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, said his drive to collect pennies also will help the U.S. Mint reverse a serious shortage of pennies caused by citizen's hoarding. "It costs eight-tenths of a cent to mint a penny," Barber said. "When people hoard pennies, they force the mint to mint additional pennies." Barber's drive received a boost when U.S. Rep. John Porter of Chicago passed a resolution designating Oct. 16 to 22 as National Penny Charity Week. The resolution noted that "donating hoarded pennies to charities provides the charities with funds, diminishes the shortage of pennies, lowers the demand on the United States Mint to produce additional pennies and ultimately saves the United States Treasury money."
The Penny Recycling Campaign will run until Dec. 31. For information, contact Penny Lovers at P.O. Box 6141, Somerset, NJ 08875-6141.
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