Turn leftover holiday coins into charity cash

The return from a Summer holiday can often mean jet-lag, sun-burn and a pocket full of foreign coins that cannot be changed back into pounds.

This year however rather than put the money in a drawer never to be seen again you can choose to donate your left-over holiday cash to charity.

There are a number of easy ways in which foreign change can be donated:

Give coins directly to your favourite charity.  For charities operating shops on the high street the easiest way to give is to take your coins into the shop.  If you have a lot of coins some charities like AgeUK will collect the coins from you.  Contact your favourite charity to find out whether they take the coins.

If you're flying check if your airline is part of the UNICEF's Change for Good partnership.  Airlines in the partnership which include Air Lingus and QUANTAS will provide envelopes in which you can leave your foreign change before you get off your flight.

Airlines which are not part of the partnership, which include British Airways and Virgin, also do onboard collections for charity partners.  Look out for collection boxes at airports like Heathrow too.

Your local Post Office branch should have a collection box for you to donate foreign coins with all change collected going to Barnardo's.  Marks and Spencers also collect left over currency for Breakthrough Breast Cancer at their Bureau de Change counters.

Colin Walton, Head of Client Relations - Charities, said "Millions of people will have foreign coins which cannot be changed back into sterling at home.  This is money that could make a big difference to charities as donations are still lower than they were before the recession.  Donating these coins to charity is a great way to make use of money that otherwise would not be spent and simply be forgotten about."

If you want to give money to good causes in the country where you went on holiday rather than charities in the UK then CAF can help you ensure that your donation goes to a recognised charity.

If you have a CAF Account or a CAF Charitable Trust and want to give a donation of more than £250 then CAF's validation team will talk to the charity you wish to give to and ensure they are a legitimate charity.  We will then arrange for the donation to be paid directly to them.  If you want to give less than £250 then CAF works in partnership with GlobalGiving UK who can help you give smaller amounts directly to projects around the world.