Credit union offers help saying goodbye to pennies

Thursday's federal budget announced plans to eliminate production of the Canadian penny.

A few hours later, Community Savings Credit Union was quick to offer a pain-free way for people to get rid of their own stash of the copper-coloured coin, which have long inhabited many a junk drawer and spaghetti-sauce jar.

The credit union's new branch at 4590 Hastings (at Alpha Avenue) in the Heights neighbourhood of North Burnaby, offers a coin-counting machine. While other such machines in stores and banks charge a commission of up to 12 per cent, this service is free of charge, and users don't need to be a member of the credit union.

"It's a great way to get traffic in," said Kirsten Allen, the credit union's marketing coordinator.

?With the opening of our Burnaby Heights branch, we wanted to thank our new neighbours by offering this service," said Doug Eveneshen, CEO of Community Savings in a press release. "With the elimination of the penny by the federal government, more people may wish to utilize this service while retaining the full amount of change they bring in.?

The machine can count 4,100 coins per minute and counts U.S. change as well. All people need to do is pour their loose change into the machine, then take the voucher it prints out to a teller to redeem it for cash.

The Hastings branch is the credit union's first in Burnaby.

Info: www.freechangecounter.com.

wchow@burnabynewsleader.com

twitter.com/@WandaChow

'; } } document.getElementById("ad_unit").innerHTML += ad_unit; google_adnum += google_ads.length; return; } google_ad_client = 'pub-9774721429222771'; google_ad_output = 'js'; google_ad_channel ='3389691084'; google_max_num_ads = '4'; google_feedback = 'on'; google_ad_type = 'text'; google_adtest = 'on'; google_image_size = '300x250'; google_skip = '3'; // -->

walmart black friday raiders veterans day oakland raiders carson palmer al davis edmund fitzgerald