What happens to the coins tossed into Rome’s Trevi Fountain?
Al Jazeera
As visitors’ coins splash into Rome’s majestic Trevi Fountain carrying wishes for love, good health or a return to the Eternal City, they provide practical help to people the tourists will never meet.
For hundreds of years, when in Rome, visitors have flocked to the fountain to make a wish, following a storied ritual. Few gave their coins a second thought.
Today, coins pile up for several days before they are fished out and taken to the Rome division of the worldwide Catholic charity Caritas, which counts the bucketfuls of change and uses them to fund a food bank, soup kitchen and welfare projects.
In 2022, Caritas collected 1.4 million euros ($1.5m) from the fountain and it expects to have gathered even more in 2023. The Italian capital is one of the world’s most visited cities with 21 million tourists.
Signs around the fountain explain that the change will go to charity – a thought that pleases many of the tourists posing by the landmark.
