When a new worker at a charity shop found stacks of $100 bills stuffed inside two old sweaters she thought they must be fake.
The store associate at Goodwill Industries then realized they were absolutely real—and the cash totaled $42,000.
Andrea Lessing was in the back sorting clothes and looking for rips or stains when she saw the treasure, and the first thing she thought of was her six-year-old daughter.
“Her birthday is coming up in July, so I can actually give her an amazing birthday party,” she told KFOR, a local news station.
But Lessing says she believes in karma, and couldn’t imagine keeping the money for herself.
She reported the lost cash, and the shop in Norman, Oklahoma was able to track down the owner, thanks to some identifiable documentation that was bundled with the money inside the donation.
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The owners, who had forgotten about the money when they donated the clothing gave Andrea $1,000, which made her break down and cry.
“Since we gave her the reward on Thursday. I spoke to her yesterday, and she is still in shock—and awed by their generosity,” Lacey Lett, the Director of Communications at Goodwill Industries of Central Oklahoma, told GNN.
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Reportedly, it’s not just the largest cash find in Oklahoma Goodwill history, it ranks among the top finds for Goodwill internationally—and the reward will help Andrea give her daughter an ‘amazing birthday’.
“I made the right decision,” Lessing said.
And, her belief that ‘if you do something good, then something good will come back to you’ turned out to as authentic and true as the currency she uncovered.
WATCH the local news video from KFOR-TV below:
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Hmmm, let’s see……$1,000 is .023 percent of $42,000.00 (that he wouldn’t have at all if it wasn’t for her honesty)…..Wow, Dude, you really stepped up to the plate on that one…….pathetic.
The only thing “pathetic” here is that math calculation.
4,200 is ten percent of 42,000, which makes the donation a very generous 2.3%.
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This is a beautiful story. Thank you for sharing. And, the generous reward for returning the lost money is inspiring. Never expected but a beautiful gesture.
Let’s do some good old-fashioned estimating. 1% of $42,000 would be $420. 2% of $42,000 would be $840. Every .1% of $42,000 would be $42, and we needed another $160 to make a thousand so it’s going to be approximately 3*(.1%) =.3% for a total of 2.3%. This is Good News. I think the story was about Good Karma and how the woman felt better being honest and getting an honest reward than it was about math.
I hope I did my math correctly!
Quick friendly math lesson.
We want to know what percentage of $42,000 equals $1,000. We can set up the equation as follows:
$42,000*Y = $1,000 (next, we want to isolate the Y, so divide both sides by $42,000)
Y = 1000/42000
Y = 0.0238 (next, multiply by 100 to convert to percentage)
Y = 2.38%
Who knows what the life situation was of the person who lost that money – it could have been their life savings that they didn’t want to keep in a bank; it was very kind of them to give away $1,000. This is a wonderful story about someone being rewarded for honesty. I hope her daughter had a wonderful birthday and the mom sleeps well knowing she did the right thing. Thank you GNN for sharing!
Me thinks “Friendly” and “Math” just don’t go together for people with artist brains like mine! LOL.
I agree it is a wonderful story!
Let’s make this simple for simple people like me.
They gave her 1/42 (one forty second) of the cash found as a reward.
There, I feel much better now.
She did the right thing, good for her. People do dream of finding such a windfall and what they’d do with it and 99.9% do the right thing and hand it in. And I believe that 99.9% of those who have their property returned do the right thing. There’s some fun maths. When I was a teenager and before credit security was as strict as it is now, I found a credit card in the street and took it home. Mum knew the lady whose name was on it (small suburb!) so I went to her address and knocked on the door. “Is this yours?” I held it out. She looked at it then grabbed it and slammed the door in my face without a word. Mum and Dad were indignant but I’d done one of the right things – the other would have been to cut it up or burn it.
Miss Midnight, so sorry to hear about the outcome of your good deed. Shameful for that woman to slam the door on your face. Hopefully she has learned that what she did is unacceptable and incorrect. Kudos to you for following your parent’s direction and returning the card. Good job! 🙂