Anonymous donors left 16 gold coins and instructions with the Wichita Community Foundation on Monday.

Four American Eagle gold coin sets were to go to four organizations: the Salvation Army, Inter-Faith Ministries, Union Rescue Mission and the Lord's Diner.

Each set contained a one-ounce coin, a half-ounce coin, a quarter-ounce coin and a one-tenth-ounce coin, said Jim Moore, the foundation's executive director.

A one-ounce American Eagle gold coin has a face value of $50 but is worth about $650.

"Whoever's doing it is not doing it for credit," said Tim Brown, the Salvation Army's development director. "There's something exciting and magical, something unusual about gold coins. It's very neat."

The donors left the same number of coins for the same organizations in 2005.

Other organizations, including GraceMed Health Clinic, the Sleepy Hollow Ronald McDonald House and the Wichita Children's Home, received gold coins from a different anonymous donor last year.

The practice builds on a tradition that started in a Chicago suburb in 1982, when gold coins started showing up in the Salvation Army's red kettles.

It's up to the four organizations to decide what to do with their latest gifts, Moore said.

Sam Muyskens at Inter-Faith Ministries is certain his organization's coins will help fund initiatives that it is undertaking to address homelessness.

An apartment complex is among those initiatives.

"I envision the person is a humble person who just wants to help," Muyskens said.

At Union Rescue Mission, Marcia Stanyer said she kept looking at the coins in amazement throughout the afternoon.

The coins will help fund psychological counseling for homeless men, so they can explore their addictions, their habits and any struggles they have that keep them from being self-sufficient, she said.

Wendy Glick, executive director of the Lord's Diner, said her organization plans to auction the coins in a March event to raise even more money to help feed the hungry.

"It's an opportunity to take that gift and do more with it than a regular financial donation," she said. "For us, hunger knows no season."