Dolphin Banks Collect Thousands for Low-Income Healthcare Provider

By Lookout Staff

October 11 -- Thanks to all the loose change dropped into the city’s bronze dolphin banks to aid the homeless, the Bayside District Corporation presented $5,000 to the Venice Family Clinic Friday morning.

The grant is the latest gift made possible by the Dolphin Change Program, which has collected tens of thousands of dollars over the past decade in the dolphin banks that leap out of the ground at the Third Street Promenade, Santa Monica Pier, Main Street and the Canyon Charter School.

In addition to presenting the donation to the Venice clinic -- which provides affordable comprehensive primary health care to the poor -- Bayside officials honored the students of the Canyon Charter School for having dropped $2,000 in change into the dolphin bank at their campus over the past six years.

"The Dolphin Change Program at Canyon Charter School gives even our youngest citizens a way to help and feel that they are making a difference in the lives of those less privileged than them," Canyon School Principal Carol Henderson said.

Bayside's Dolphin Change Program was set up in 1993 to give residents an opportunity to help the homeless without giving money directly to panhandlers.

Pedestrians walking the city's most popular commercial areas can drop change into the dolphin banks. The Bayside uses the money to give grants to social service organizations each year.

This year, as in the past three years, Bayside gave its grant in the name of Marianne Dorn, whose trust made a large donation to Bayside and its Dolphin Change program in 1998.

The money and award were presented at a breakfast organized by the Westside Shelter and Hunger Coalition, a group of organizations and government agencies that work to eradicate homelessness.