Goodwill Employee Opens Donated Hat Box, Finds Over $2K Hidden Inside
For employees sorting through donation bins at Goodwill stores around the country, each day must come with its own flavor of bizarre.
Take, for example, one Goodwill store in Texas that discovered a boa constrictor curled up inside a bin of clothing.
Or one woman who found her adult son’s long-lost baseball glove for sale at a local Goodwill in Ohio — 40 years after he lost it.
Among the stories of strange Goodwill finds, we sometimes hear about hidden money, stashed away and later found — a real-life treasure discovery.
Such was the case at a Northern Illinois Goodwill store when an employee rifled through some belongings that had been dropped off anonymously.
Among the donated goods was an old hat box. When the employee lifted the lid, he found a mysterious envelope hidden inside.
The fattened envelope contained an astonishing $2,300 dollars, which someone had neatly tucked away, perhaps for a rainy day.
At that moment, the Goodwill employee could have quietly kept the money — finders keepers, right?
But instead, the employee exhibited a genuine honesty that has made the Goodwill family incredibly proud. The employee reported his find to the manager, and the two immediately set about trying to make things right.
The manager used security camera footage to try and track down the vehicle that had dropped off the hat box, Northwest Herald reported.
She also contacted the police, hoping they would be able to help track down the vehicle.
The story has an incredible ending, as Goodwill and the police officers worked together to return the $2,300 dollars to the rightful owner.
Goodwill Industries of Northern Illinois President, Ben Bernsten, praised the employee for doing the right thing.
“This is a fantastic, heartwarming story, and it says so much about the honesty and integrity of the Goodwill employee,” Bernsten said.
“This represents the very best of our Goodwill values.”
Goodwill stores across America are community-based nonprofit organizations seeking to provide employment opportunities to people looking to better their lives.
In the case of this anonymous employee, it looks like Goodwill made the perfect choice by hiring him as part of the Goodwill family.
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