Dozens of City of Ottawa employees brought handfuls of their old and broken gold jewelry to work Wednesday to raise money for the Christmas Exchange (CBC)

As the price of gold soars, food and clothing drives are being joined by a new kind of charity fundraiser — gold drives.

Dozens of City of Ottawa employees brought handfuls of their old and broken gold jewelry to work Wednesday to raise money for the Christmas Exchange, a local charity that provides food to the less fortunate during the holiday season.

The event was co-ordinated by Ottawa-based Recycle Frog, a company that buys jewelry containing precious metals from the public and arranges for the metals to be recycled.

David Martinek, vice-president of the company, was on hand at the municipal offices on Constellation Drive with scales and other equipment to help appraise the value of the gold, based on its weight and carat quality.

On Wednesday, the market price of gold was around $1,095 US an ounce. That's more than double the price per ounce five years ago — $434 US.

"We calculate how much the value of this is, we make an offer to the customer," he said. "If they accept it, a portion of that offer goes to the Christmas Exchange."

The customer gets to keep the rest of the money.

Recycle Frog is matching donations on a dollar-for-dollar basis, Martinek said.

Sue Carpenter got her old accessories weighed and found out they are worth $600. She donated 10 per cent to the Christmas Exchange and got a cheque for the rest.

"Great idea to recycle what you don't use and it makes a good donation to worthy cause," she said.

Sui-Ling Leung, director of development and volunteer services for the Christmas Exchange, said Martinek first contacted her group on the social networking site Twitter. He proposed a gold drive as a fundraiser, and a small one was held at the City of Ottawa offices in January. That one got a good response, Leung said, so they decided to hold another one.

She said she knows Christmas is still months away, but her group wants to get a jump on fundraising so it doesn't face a crunch at the end of the year.

"We do get our list of people who need our help, we want to make sure we have the funds available to help them," Leung said.

The Christmas Exchange says it helped 25,000 people last year.

Recycle Frog has recently signed a similar partnership with the Canadian Cancer Society in Ottawa.