What happens to coins thrown into the Trevi Fountain? – 03/10/2024 – Tourism

As visitors’ coins fall 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 tourists will never meet.

For hundreds of years, tourists in Rome have gathered at the fountain to make a wish, following a legendary ritual. Few thought twice about their coins.

Today, the coins accumulate for several days before being removed and taken to a branch of the Catholic charity Caritas, which counts the buckets of change and uses it to fund a food bank, a soup kitchen and social assistance projects.

In 2022, Caritas raised 1.4 million euros (R$7.6 million) at the source and hopes to have raised even more in 2023. Rome is one of the most visited cities in the world, with 21 million tourists.

Extracting the coins is a spectacle and involves workers from the regional utility company ACEA balancing on the edge of the vast baroque fountain using long brooms and suction hoses.

The coins are then delivered to Caritas, where they are dried with hairdryers and cutlery dryers, and then sorted and counted.

Signs around the fountain explain that the change will go to charity — a thought that pleases many of the tourists posing by the landmark.

“I wanted to make a wish that is dear to my heart,” said Yula Cole of Brazil after tossing a coin. “But I also know that this coin is not just staying there, but it will help people in need. I made a wish, but I hope this money helps other people’s wishes too.”

Day and night, crowds of people gather around the fountain to take photos. Legend says that if you throw a coin with your right hand over your left shoulder into the fountain, you will return to Rome. People eagerly add their own personal desires.

“I’m flipping a coin because they say if you flip a coin you’ll return to Rome and also because I want to fulfill my wish of finding love,” said Carola, from Chile.

The Trevi Fountain, completed in 1762, covers one side of the Palazzo Poli in central Rome with its statues of newts guiding the shell chariot of the god Ocean, illustrating the theme of the taming of waters.

It’s where Italian film director Federico Fellini set one of the most famous scenes in cinema. In “La Dolce Vita”, Anita Ekberg’s character enters the fountain after midnight and calls Marcello Mastroianni to join her.

Entering its waters is now prohibited, and tourists face fines if they do so.

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Twice a week, up to four workers collect the coins, said Francesco Prisco, ACEA manager. The fountain is drained for cleaning twice a month.

“Collection and cleanup operations are carried out as quickly as possible to try to reduce source downtime,” he said.

After the coins are swept up in a long line by a long-reaching broom, they are sucked up by hoses and taken to the Caritas office, where employee Fabrizio Marchioni spreads them out on a huge table to dry.

It’s not just coins that are taken from the source. Workers have already removed jewelry, dentures, religious medals, even umbilical cords.

Signs near the fountain warn not to steal the coins. Over the decades, coins have been the target of theft, sometimes with magnets attached to a post.

Next to Rome’s main station is the Caritas supermarket, known as Emporium, which distributes food to residents in need who can buy it with tokens on a card.

“I was a blacksmith, but then I lost my job, and my arthritis doesn’t help me find a new one. Luckily there are places like this Emporium,” said a man who gave his name only as Domenico.

Another man, Luigi, explained: “I was a builder and also owned a video surveillance system company before I lost my job. Places like this Emporium offer concrete help.”

Back at the fountain, the coins accumulate.

“I was told that if I flipped two coins my wishes would come true. That’s why I did it,” said Chinese tourist Yuting.