Defunct coins given full value for charity

Kerry Ross, from Fuji Xerox, with a pile of coins which the Lions Club will collect and sell to the Reserve Bank. The proceeds will be used for children's charities. Photo / Dean Purcell

Those useless coins that have been in your drawer since your last overseas trip may finally be useful - to send needy children on the adventure of a lifetime.

The country's Lions Clubs have struck a deal with the Reserve Bank to get the full value of defunct New Zealand coins, and another deal with a private buyer to take foreign coins at 75 per cent of their face value, for charity.

The proceeds will send needy youngsters on the Spirit of Adventure sailing ship, to Outward Bound or the Sir Edmund Hillary Outdoor Pursuits Centre, support Leos clubs for youth aged 13 to 18 and train teachers on how to work with difficult students.

Auckland organiser Richard Simmons said the clubs hoped to raise between $1 million and $5 million by July 10 next year, the anniversary of New Zealand's adoption of decimal currency in 1967.

"If we get towards the $5 million, some will be invested as an ongoing fund towards supporting youth," he said. "If we get $1 million it will disappear straight to youth in a couple of years."

The campaign, which has been running for six weeks, has already drawn bucketloads of coins.

Kerry Ross, the managing director's executive assistant at Fuji Xerox in Auckland, emptied two drawers full of coins returned by the company's executives after overseas trips.

"We tried to give them to people to use the next time they went back to those countries, but it just never worked," she said.

"I tried to tell people to give them to the Amnesty buckets. That didn't work. Then I heard about this on the radio."

Mr Simmons said many banks and currency exchange shops were also keen to get rid of coins that were sitting in vaults unable to be used.

Coins can be donated at any Resene paint shop or via 0800 Old Money (0800 653-666), www.lionsclubs.org.nz/oldmoney