Rounding up your bar tab to feed the hungry
NEW YORK (FOX 5 NEWS) - 1.4 million New Yorkers rely on soup kitchens and food pantries to feed themselves and their families. An app is looking to help the needy through micro donations.
While bartending after receiving a master's degree in economics, Andra Tomsa identified a creative way to make a difference. Her app Spare enables users to easily round up their bar and restaurant tabs to the nearest dollar, donating the marginal difference, less a 20 percent fee, to Food Bank for New York City. If you're wondering whether 5 cents here and 10 cents there may just be a drop in the bucket, it turns out spare change can make a big change. According to Tomsa, just 25 cents pays for a meal!
But beyond the altruistic satisfaction, Spare offers users material rewards too, with participating restaurants offering incentives like free drinks for users who repeatedly round up.