How an ancient tradition helps local nonprofits
Once common in our pockets and purses, coins are now rarely used in daily life. But one tendency continues among all age groups: the desire to toss a coin in a fountain.
The most famous example, the Trevi Fountain in Rome, Italy, brings in $1.6 million per year (and rising), with funds going to a charity that assists low-income and homeless citizens. In the US, coins tossed by luck-seekers at the Mall of America in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and The Bellagio in Last Vegas each bring in approximately $25,000 per year, all gathered and donated to area charities.
The Greenville area is home to a wealth of fountains, many with quarters and pennies glinting from their surfaces. TOWN looked into the fate of these coins—and what drives people to take part in this ancient practice.
Good fortune
Dr. Lisa Knight, chair of the department of anthropology at Furman University, says tossing coins began as a sacrifice—people giving up something of value as a means of earning good fortune.
“Throughout history and across cultures, water has been deeply connected to life and spirituality, making the practice of offering valuable items to bodies of water a widespread tradition,” says Knight.
First, people left food, charms, or symbolic objects. “The invention of coinage around 600 BCE shifted the practice toward coins,” she says.
Wishing wells became popular as early as 100 CE, and while scholars agree that the sacrifice for good fortune is the impetus, some claim that “copper coins possess antiseptic qualities that help purify water,” Knight says, another reason people may have regularly dropped pennies into wells.
Folklore, legend, and myth preserved the practice through centuries, straight through to today’s world. The Trevi Fountain, completed in 1762, now has a virtual coin toss at trevifountain.org, where wishful people around the world can toss a digital coin at the touch of a button for, as the website describes it, a “moment of magic.”
Local Luck
One of the most popular local fountains for wish-making is in the unique Airside Garden at Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport. Children at Play by sculptor Dennis Smith features six statues of children leaping and skipping through a large water feature.
Because locals and travelers seemed drawn to tossing coins at the fountain, GSP staff embraced the practice and launched Change for Good, a program that gathers the money and funnels it into local nonprofits.
“Every year, millions of passengers and visitors pass through GSP, and many take a moment to toss a coin into one of our fountains,” says Kevin Howell, president and CEO of the Greenville-Spartanburg Airport District. Those coins add up and can make a difference in the community, he adds.
The first collection rounded up $3,000. For its first year, GSP Change for Good partnered with the Salvation Army of Greenville, Pickens, and Oconee Counties and Salvation Army of Spartanburg. Major Michael Harris, area commander of The Salvation Army of Greenville County, says the donation “helps us continue to support those in our area struggling to make ends meet” with food, shelter, clothing, and job placement services.
In downtown Greenville, Il Porcellino, the boar sculpture outside Poinsett Plaza, is one of several fountains that accumulate change. The legend of this statue, a copy of a bronze sculpture in Florence, is that if you put a coin in the boar’s mouth and it falls through the grates below, good luck is granted.
Rivers Hughes founded the art restoration organization Young Friends of Florence, and one of its first projects was unveiling Il Porcellino in 2011. His group maintains the statue and collects the coins, which he says are funneled back into “upkeep and maintenance of the boar itself,” among other art restoration projects. “Bronze sculptures can corrode over time, so we use the income to maintain it and to maintain pieces of art that we think are valuable to the community,” he says.
During the process of creating the statue, an Italian collaborator pointed out to him that European people might use a 2-euro coin, currently valued at $2.21 in US dollars. Stateside, people are more likely to place a penny or dime in the boar’s mouth, which leads to fewer proceeds. In Florence, coins from Il Porcellino go to local orphanages.
Another local coin-toss spot is at the Main Street entrance to Falls Park, where Bryan Hunt’s sculpture Falls Lake Falls sits amid several fountains. Beth Brotherton, director of communications and engagement for the City of Greenville, says fountains the city maintains, including those at the entrance to Falls Park, do get plenty of coins from people seeking good luck, but the proceeds are negligible, as the coins are often pulled back out “almost as quickly as they are dropped in. Whether it’s mischief or people in need, we don’t know and have not considered enforcement.”
It’s another way your wish for luck may have benefited someone in need.
