The State Coin Collection Anonymous

It was a brisk summer day in the park next to my house. I had just finished my Eagle Scout project I had been working on for the past week and I was preparing for a quick jog to unload all of the stress and grogginess of the past couple of days. One step, two steps, thump! I had forgotten to tie my shoes and fell face forward into the rock hard pathway.

Most people would be far too busy grasping their bleeding knee to notice, but all I could think about was the rusty coin that was caught in between the sidewalk. It couldn’t be, could it? I grabbed the coin, and sure enough, it was none other than the New York state coin! Most people would simply toss the coin back into the woods and never look at it again, but this coin was far more than just a piece of copper to me. Sure, it could go towards saving for a computer or a snack at school, but to me, it symbolized so much more. It was one of the last quarters that I needed in order to complete my collection of the 50 state quarters, a feat that I had been trying to accomplish for over three years.

The 50 State quarters program was a project done by the United States government in which, every year, they temporarily mass-produced five exclusive coins for five different states. While...