New Yorkers give back using special vending machines on Giving Tuesday

NEW YORK (PIX11) --- Some unique vending machines made it easy to give back on Giving Tuesday after a weekend of holiday shopping.

With the swipe of a credit card at a Giving Machine, you can give back to charities around the world. There are 22 Giving Machines across the country, including ones at Lincoln Center and Rockefeller Center.

UNICEF USA and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints partnered for the annual Light the World Giving Machines. The machines started being used five years ago.

The machines provide a tangible experience so people can really understand what their money is going toward. For $13, you can provide five backpacks to school children elsewhere in the world. For $25, you can provide 100 polio vaccines for kids and for $32, you can provide five baby blankets to keep kids warm somewhere in the world. For $197.50, children can be outfitted for basic supplies for school.

There were other ways to help in New York on Tuesday. More than 600 coats given out to migrant families outside PS 111 in Hell's Kitchen, where a third of the students are living in temporary housing.. 

“When COVID hit, we saw an increase in request for coats from our partner agencies and this year, just this fall, it’s up by another 20% just in New York City alone," Beth Amodio, CEO of One Warm Coat, said.

Project Russeau is also working with these students to help with immigration status. 

"Warm winter jackets has been one of the needs identified by most of these families and their children because they’re from warm climate countries and they just got here so they don’t have winter jackets," Andrew Heinrich with Project Russeau said.