mite box

plural mite boxes

1. A box, especially in a church, into which small charitable donations for the needy may be placed; (now commonly) any of a number of cardboard boxes distributed for individual donations.

   For us, Lent was about the mite boxes we were given in each Sunday school class through sixth grade.

   2003, Carol Bonomo, Humble Pie: St. Benedict's Ladder of Humility, page 46

   2 more examples

   Even if there had been time for mite boxes they were not such a good idea after all, she corrected herself.[…]It was not a neat and tidy mite box the way Beulah Ball's was; it was a dirty, torn, loose mite box, and so was Jerry's.

   1951, Eleanor Estes, Ginger Pye, published 2004, page 20

   Sister Vincetta, principal of St. Augustine's Elementary School, told us that the pennies in the mite box fed starving children all over China.

   2005, Marty Toohey, Bronx Boy: A Memoir, page 76

   Synonyms: alms box, poor box