Is a penny worth anything?

On my walk home tonight I saw into the crate of the woman who begs in front of the metro station near my office. I hesitate to say "homeless woman," because she always looks clean and has fresh clothes and only sits there from 9 to 5. She also claims to have three children, so I can only guess that she is able to house them somewhere when they're not in school. All of these things have made me wonder why she continues to sit in the same spot and beg nearly every day for the last year. I don't know her specific circumstances, but it seems to me that if she is able to get clean clothes, transport to a business district on a regular schedule, and have access to childcare, she should be able to get and hold down some kind of job.

But that's not really my point. My point is that when I saw into the crate, all she had was a couple of dollar bills and a pile of pennies. There wasn't a silver coin in there from what I could tell, and this really got to me.

I started wondering, what's worse? The person who doesn't give anything, or the person who picks through their change and just throws in pennies? If you want to give, and they're legitimately all you have, that's one thing, but I think if that were the case some people would have thrown in their quarters, dimes, and nickels as well.

I rarely give to those begging, and I use a number of reasons to justify this to myself--the fact that it encourages them to continue that life, the fact that I can't give to everyone who asks, the fact that I've given to people based on what I learned later were lies. I don't think any of these absolves me from charges of selfishness, however, and I'll own up to that. But to me it seems to take a particular callousness to go through one's pockets and pick out only the most utterly worthless change. It makes me wonder if they're giving it more to get it out of their pockets than because they want to help someone.

I can't rule out the possibility that she had taken out the more valuable change by the time I walked by. I hope that that's the case. Otherwise I'm not really sure she made enough today to pay for her metro ride to and from wherever she comes from, let alone support herself and three kids. I also hope she gets herself out of whatever trouble she's in that keeps her there day after day...