"Mackinac Money" will be the name of a new St. Ignace promotion to be introduced this month, in which visitors and local residents may purchase a keepsake pouch filled with wooden coins, each to be redeemed at a local business for a discount or prize. The pouch full of 20 or 30 coins may be purchased for $10 and will contain discounts worth between $150 and $250.

The idea is similar in concept to a coupon book, said its designer, Darryl Brown, but has some distinct advantages. The wooden coins will be offered in a keepsake velveteen pouch stamped with an image of the Mackinac Bridge, making them appealing to visitors, and the coins will have "no shelf life."

"We know that 60 percent of the people who come to the U.P. are from Michigan, and they may make as many as three or four trips per year," Mr. Brown said. He is working as an advertising liaison with the Chamber of Commerce to launch the program. "With Mackinac Money, they can save the wooden nickels they didn't use this trip and bring them back next time, or give them to a friend who is coming north. The whole idea is to get people from downstate talking about St. Ignace."

"By having fun with it, visitors are more apt to drop in on individual businesses, and we may keep them in town a day, or half a day, longer," Mr. Brown said. "They may say, we have a discount coin for that shop, let's stop and buy our fudge there."

"Instant Winner" coins will be included in many of the pouches at random, Mr. Brown said, and he expects this to be a popular feature of the program for shoppers.

"Businesses have been very generous with prizes for the instant winners," he said, mentioning donated prizes from restaurants, Mackinac Island ferry services, and local attractions and shops. Free ferry rides, free pizzas, duffel bags, and store gift baskets have been donated so far.

When the wooden coins are dropped into cash registers this summer, businesses will be able to use them to track customer sales, said Janet Peterson of the Chamber of Commerce.

"Will they keep track and say, this coin generated a $25 sale, or just report at year's end that 500 tokens were turned in - that's up to them," she said.

The coins and velveteen pouches are being printed now and will be available in the next couple of weeks at the Chamber of Commerce office, and soon after at participating businesses. Businesses must be Chamber members to use the coin promotion and will buy advertising through the program to participate.

Mackinac Money is the first step in a strategic marketing plan that will develop a funding source for the Chamber of Commerce, which collects operating money only through membership fees. Funds generated by ad sales on the coins will be funneled into a marketing fund that will be used in the next three to five years to develop more programs to promote the local business community.

"Essentially, it's a tool to create an advertising budget that the chamber is not getting from its membership fees," Mr. Brown said, noting that the project has cost only about $600 to launch. He hopes to sell 10,000 Mackinac Money bags this year, generating income of $100,000. Half of those funds would go back into the Mackinac Money program, which he hopes to grow to 40,000 bags in circulation in the next three years, and half of the funds would be a revenue source for the Chamber of Commerce to develop further plans.

"Hopefully, by next year at this time, Mackinac Money will be in place, and we can build on that with another new program to launch," Mrs. Peterson said. The Chamber of Commerce board is working on plans to launch a "Shop St. Ignace" campaign geared to residents across the area, which will be released this fall.

In the meantime, Mr. Brown is planning to launch Mackinac Money by having a crew of young volunteers hand out free sample coins in St. Ignace and possibly Mackinaw City in the next couple of weeks.

"The idea will be tested as businesses see how the nickels work. When businesses join in, the more people work together, the greater the value of the bags, and the more will go into circulation," Mr. Brown said. "It will launch a collaborative feeling. The small businessmen know that, individually, everyone struggles, but this would begin to bring all of our efforts together."