Find a penny, pick it up; give to charity quite a few bucks!

My favorite thing about New Year's Day is tallying up all the money I've found over the previous year, which I donate to the Sean McGrath Fund at the Princeton Area Community Foundation.

As many of you know, Sean was a close friend of mine who worked with me at MTV after he had been a member of New Jersey bands Saves The Day, Hands Tied, and Mouthpiece. He was stricken with cholangiocarcinoma (the same hard-to-diagnose bile duct cancer that took the life of Ray Manzarek of The Doors) and fought valiantly for two years before finally succumbing to the disease in 2004.

In the decade since, we've raised and granted nearly $35000 to assorted health and humanitarian charities with the help of our many donors and musical supporters (most prevalently Thursday, Taking Back Sunday, Midtown, and The Movielife, who volunteered to perform at our inaugural "Hold On To Your Friends" benefit concert, and have continued to offer support throughout the years).

The money that I stop to pick up each year is just a drop in that proverbial bucket, but I challenge each and every person reading this to match the amount (at minimum) with their own donation so that we can continue doing good work in Sean's name and memory!

And now for this year's tally...

It was a banner year for the campaign, in part thanks to an unfortunate circumstance: I was freelancing at a company in the spring when they were sold to a new owner and fired the vast majority of their staff, who left behind a collective total of $26.49 after they cleaned out their desks and walked out the door for the last time. Even aside from that windfall, though, I found a sizable sum abandoned or lost on the streets of New York, in subway stations, at checkout counters, in cabs, and even at the bank. Here's the breakdown of denominations (including the inadvertent donations from my former colleagues):

$10 - 1

$5 - 1

$1 - 5

$0.25 - 50

$0.10 - 114

$0.05 - 87

$0.01 - 636

All told, that comes to $54.61--but wait a second, I'm not done yet!

In addition to the American currency, I found two separate NYC MetroCards with a combined value of $4.65 (essentially found money), as well as the following foreign currency (US exchange value in parenthesis):

1.32 Euros ($1.60)

.03 Canadian dollars ($0.03)

.06 British pounds ($0.09)

5.00 Peruvian soles ($1.67)

1.00 Hong Kong dollars ($0.13)

.01 Singapore dollars ($0.01)

1.25 United Arab Emirates dirhams ($0.34)

That makes this year's grand total a record-setting $63.13, more than tripling the puny tally from 2013, and easily surpassing the 2012 and 2011 hauls.

And now my two-part challenge: 1) for each of you to make a matching donation by the end of January in honor of what would have been Sean's 39th birthday on the 27th of this month (I'll set the pace by making a personal donation to match the money I found), and 2) for you to set aside a can or jar to store your own found money in 2015, with the end goal of tallying and donating it next January.

To make your own $63.13 (or greater!) donation to the Sean McGrath Fund, hit the orange button on the PACF site and make sure you specify "Sean McGrath Fund" in your note. Thanks in advance for your generosity, your support, and for helping us keep Sean's name and spirit alive through charity!