Thursday, October 22, 2009

Donations measured in meters

by Robert Carnes

When approached by a panhandler, you typically only have two options:
1. Give money directly to a stranger
2. Ignore them
Patrons in downtown Athens have an alternative:
3. Donate money to the homeless via meter



fastfacts

4 Donation meters between Clayton St. and Broad St.

$700 Total money raised annually from the meters

10 Years the meters have been in operation

742 Parking meters in all of downtown

ADDA Athens Downtown Development Authority installed the meters

NGHC Northeast Georgia Homeless Coalition receives a portion of the proceeds


word on the street


“A donation here will provide help for the homeless. Please
do not give cash to panhandlers.”
-- Signs attached to each of the donation meters



“I would rather give the money directly to the person.”
-- Jordan Robinson, University of Georgia senior


“Money given directly to individual panhandlers could be abused.”
-- Katherine Lookofsky, ADDA director


“We spend the donations on bus passes for the homeless.”-- Homeless Coalition chairman, Ed Moore

edited by Elissa Ewald

1 comment:

  1. Interesting combination of formats. I'm not sure the fastfax is the best way to present the five W's information about the meters and how they work. For this stuff, a more linear summary paragraph might be easier to understand. But you can do a "By the numbers" in a similar format for the numerical info.

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