Money For Old Gold!

by Maria Carly
(UK)

Scrap gold proved to be a real winner for our church fundraising team.

Basically we asked for people's old, broken or unwanted jewelery. Most of these items were not worth much on their own but put together they fetched a fair bit as the price for scrap gold is quite high at the moment due to the credit crunch.

Announcements were made at all services and we also advertised in our parish magazine. We were quite lucky too and got a great feature in the local paper with our vicar, who is female, holding some bits of donated jewelery.

To make their donations people could leave their gold in a special drop box at services. I know also that many people asked friends and neighbours to have a look to see if they had anything too.

We received a lot of thin broken gold chains and a good number of single earrings and studs. There were also a few nice rings.

I think asking people to have a look through their jewelery drawers also encouraged people to have a sort out as we also received a number of more precious donations which were sold separately to a local antique jeweler.

NB: We did get an expert to check all the other donations before letting it go for scrap!

All in all a good fundraiser but I guess one that can only be done every few years.