Dakin Humane Society nets $11,000 in coins tossed into Yankee Candle moat

SPRINGFIELD — Coins tossed at Yankee Candle Village are making wishes come true for the animals at Dakin Humane Society in Springfield.

Dakin received 48 baskets of coins this summer worth more than $11,000 and counting. Visitors tossed the change in Yankee Candle Village’s in-store moat, adjacent to its Bavarian Village, by store visitors in the years between 2019 and June, Dakin said Friday in a news release.

Jeff Palmer, sales and operations manager at Yankee Candle, and Ben Ware, property and guest services manager at Yankee Candle Co., trucked the coins down from the store in South Deerfield. Ware’s team handled the process of cleaning the moat and removing the coins.

Dakin cleaned the coins in a cement mixer — the fastest and most efficient way anyone could think to do it. Forty volunteers worked nearly four weeks to clean and sort the coins and prepare them for bank deposit.

Their work is still not done, Dakin spokeswoman Lee Chambers said.

Dakin had been a regular recipient of the coins, but Yankee Candle stopped collecting them regularly during COVID. These 48 shopping baskets of coins were donated between 2019 and June.

Yankee Candle founder Michael J. Kittredge II was an animal lover and decided that the moat money should be directed to Dakin to help support its animals, programs and services. Kittredge died in 2019 at the age of 67.

“We are grateful for Yankee Candle’s ongoing generosity for more than 30 years, and for the many store visitors who tossed their coins into the moat,” said Dakin director of development and marketing Stacey Price. “Their good luck wishes translated to good luck for the animals.”

In a typical year, the organization shelters, treats and fosters more than 20,000 animals and has performed over 134,000 spay/neuter surgeries since 2009, making it one of New England’s largest spay/neuter providers.