# Parking meters recycled as collecting boxes

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2010/08/18/parking-meters-recycled-collecting-boxes/
- Published: 2010-08-18T18:05:54+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**Here’s one fundraising idea that made me smile. In Canada the City of Montréal’s
retired metal, mechanical parking meters have been recycled as fundraising collecting
boxes to help the city’s homeless people.**

Robust, hard to miss (especially now that they’ve all been painted by local celebrities),
low-maintenance, and secure, the 70 parking meters were converted in 2007 by the
city’s parking authority, in association with the Ville-Marie borough and the [L’Itinéraire](http://www.itineraire.ca)
newspaper.

They are known as **ParcoDons**, and in their first three years they have raised
C$23,000. Organisers anticipate them raising C$40,000 over the next three years.

## Advertisement

 [⌊ParcoDon #52 - Josée Di Stasio⌉](https://www.flickr.com/photos/montreal_bunny/albums/72157624395813704)

Photos: [Montreal Bunny on Flickr.com](https://www.flickr.com/photos/montreal_bunny/albums/72157624395813704)

This is just one of many inspiring fundraising and social enterprise ideas I’ve 
come across on [Springwise – your daily fix of entrepreneurial ideas](http://www.springwise.com).

What does your local authority plan to do with its older parking meters that it 
must, presumably, at some point replace with newer versions?

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