Mr Hayes was presented with the International President's Medal in New Plymouth, when he was about to leave the stage.
"I had gone up there to report to the convention on the project and at the end of the presentation there was some award."
A member of Queenstown Lions for 18 years, Mr Hayes remembered wondering what happened to all the old money which was no longer legal tender and realised there was "a possibility to raise money for a good cause".
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand estimated there was $81 million that was no longer legal tender, which people could redeem dollar for dollar.
Mr Hayes said people had tried to raise money through redeeming old coins before and he was told he "wouldn't raise more than two or four thousand".
What he had not told that person was he intended to get an internationally recognised organisation behind the plan.
Now, 20 months on, people nationwide had dropped hundreds of thousands of coins into collection buckets in aid of the Heads up for Kids initiative.
Lions had run a couple of pilot schemes to determine where the money should go, such as leadership courses at the Sir Edmund Hillary Outdoor Pursuit
