Numismatics

In a post somewhere on d4 'n3t, I read this:

"The Red Cross states that if half of those Americans living within 2 miles of a Coinstar machine donated just $1 in spare change to the Red Cross, it would raise more than $65 million to support American Red Cross lifesaving services in communities nationwide!"

I am not eloquent enough to make general comments about Katrina and the chaos it has caused, save for expressing my sympathy to those who have suffered in its wake. I am, however, enough of a nerd to look at the above statement and wonder about those figures. So let's take a look at the numbers.

At $1 per American, it would take 65,000,000 people to generate $65,000,000. Since half of all Americans living within 2 miles of a Coinstar machine can generate $65,000,000, all Americans living within 2 miles of a Coinstar machine could generate twice that, $130,000,000, which then translates into 130,000,000 Americans. The population of the United States of America is approximately 295,734,134 and so roughly 40% of all Americans live within 2 miles of a Coinstar machine.

Can that possibly be true? I never realized Coinstar had such an empire...within 2 miles of which I, at least, am not. Either that or someone is exaggerating a wee bit.