Local Crush: Q2

Hey! It’s November now, so we’re moving the Local Crush penny press to its new location - and more excitingly, putting in a whole new wheel design!

The press itself has a wheel with space for four designs: our first wheel had a design for each of our three hosts, plus a special spot for Local Crush itself. That means we’ve already been through our first three gracious hosts:

• Mass Street Soda kicked us off. They supported O’Connell Children’s Shelter, and raised $177.50 - which means they and their customers pressed 355 pennies.

• Then we moved to Wonder Fair in September; they were supporting LAAND, and raised $184.00 - 368 pennies pressed!

• In October we were at Lawrence Public Library and supported the Friends Foundation. Patrons crushed 220 pennies - raising $110.

• Now that it’s November, we’re at Liberty Hall, where they are supporting Just Food, the Douglas County food bank.

Some open questions:

• We expect that more foot traffic = more pennies. But does a low-cost product like Mass St Soda (a bottle is $2!) make people more likely to get a souvenir?
• LPL must have higher foot traffic - but it’s not a place where people are ready to spend money, right? It’s the library!
• MSS and WF are both impulse-purchase meccas. How will it work in places where people are there for bigger purchases?
• We talk about this like you should go to each host and grab that store’s design. But of course, you can get all four designs at any host, any time during that 3-month window. So; does the first host in a set get more traffic? There are definitely some penny-press collectors hitting up the machine.