VATICAN CITY — While millions of tourists throw a coin over their
shoulder into Rome's Trevi Fountain hoping to return to Rome one day, the money
scooped out of the fountain each week offers more concrete hope to the city's
poor.
Rome's city council extended an agreement March 29 with Caritas
Rome to entrust it with the tourists' coins to provide food and shelter to the
city's poor and needy.
Each day countless tourists from around the world squint their
eyes, make a wish and toss thousands of dollars' worth of coins into the
fountain; the money is then collected by city workers using high-powered
vacuums.
According to Caritas Roma, an estimated 1.4 million euros ($1.7
million) worth of coins were tossed into the famed fountain in 2016.
Although the Catholic charitable organization has been entrusted
with the fountain's profits for 20 years, the city council was considering
canceling its agreement and instead using the money to help fund various
projects in the financially strapped city.
However, the city council delayed its decision and the charity
will continue receiving the fountain's revenue stream at least until Dec. 31,
Caritas Roma said in an April 3 press release.
The decision was welcomed by Msgr. Enrico Feroci, director of
Caritas Rome, saying it "concretely expresses the solidarity of the whole
city of Rome toward those who suffer and are disadvantaged."
By trusting Caritas Rome with the money collected from the Trevi
Fountain, he added, the Rome city council has recognized that the Catholic
charity has a special and unique history in the city in "reaching out and
encountering the most diverse forms of poverty," particularly in serving
the homeless, the elderly, migrants and struggling families.
"Responsibility, transparency, a spirit of service and
witness: These are the attitudes that have guided us in these years in which
the city of Rome has entrusted the proceeds of the Trevi Fountain coins to
Caritas," Msgr. Feroci said.
While many tourists make a wish to return to the Eternal City one
day, Msgr. Feroci said the funds they unknowingly contribute allow them to join
the Catholic charity in becoming "protagonists of change" for the
city's poor.
"This is the spirit with which Caritas will continue the
management of the Trevi Fountain coins," he said.