Restoring Faith in Humanity

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Mark (Star Mariner) (here)
I've found many a coin stuffed down the back of the sofa over the years, but this....?

https://x.com/damian173_/status/2083201545596776729
Damian
@damian173_
A Michigan man bought an old couch from a thrift store then complained it had weird lumps in the cushions.

His daughter unzipped them.

Inside?
Bundle after bundle of cash.

Total: $43,170.

A lawyer told him he was under no legal obligation to return a single dollar.

He needed the money himself even a new roof.

But instead of keeping it, he tracked down the original owner.

The couch had belonged to an elderly man who had secretly hidden his life savings inside before he died. His granddaughter had donated it to a Habitat for Humanity store without ever knowing the money was there.

When she got the call, she was stunned.

Against all odds, the cash found its way back to the family it belonged to.

This reminds me of an extraordinary story I heard long ago when I was in the UK working with disadvantaged teenagers on week-long residential government Youth Training programs.

I had a small team with me, so between us we could deal wth all contingencies. One such came up when a young girl was clearly having issues integrating with the rest of the group, and was causing quite a problem. She'd often been in trouble with the law, and came over as sullen and angry almost all the time.

So I left the rest of the group with my colleagues, and took her aside for a couple of hours to talk with her. Unsurprisingly, she came from an impoverished troubled family, and had had a very tough childhood. But while she was telling me all about her life, she shared a story I've never forgotten.

One evening, she was walking on her own along the bank of a small muddy river in the inner city where she lived. And there she found a sealed black garbage bag full of something or other.

She got curious, and impulsively opened it. It was stashed full of used £50 notes, all tightly bundled in small plastic bags.

She described to me how she spent quite some time counting what was there.

I asked her how much it all was.

"About five million", she said.

I was completely taken aback.

"What did you do??" I asked.

Her answer astonished me even more.

"I just handed it all to the police."

[grapevine]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)

Posted by Mark (Star Mariner) (here)
I've found many a coin stuffed down the back of the sofa over the years, but this....?

https://x.com/damian173_/status/2083201545596776729
Damian
@damian173_
A Michigan man bought an old couch from a thrift store then complained it had weird lumps in the cushions.

His daughter unzipped them.

Inside?
Bundle after bundle of cash.

Total: $43,170.

A lawyer told him he was under no legal obligation to return a single dollar.

He needed the money himself even a new roof.

But instead of keeping it, he tracked down the original owner.

The couch had belonged to an elderly man who had secretly hidden his life savings inside before he died. His granddaughter had donated it to a Habitat for Humanity store without ever knowing the money was there.

When she got the call, she was stunned.

Against all odds, the cash found its way back to the family it belonged to.

This reminds me of an extraordinary story I heard long ago when I was in the UK working with disadvantaged teenagers on week-long residential government Youth Training programs.

I had a small team with me, so between us we could deal wth all contingencies. One such came up when a young girl was clearly having issues integrating with the rest of the group, and was causing quite a problem. She'd often been in trouble with the law, and came over as sullen and angry almost all the time.

So I left the rest of the group with my colleagues, and took her aside for a couple of hours to talk with her. Unsurprisingly, she came from an impoverished troubled family, and had had a very tough childhood. But while she was telling me all about her life, she shared a story I've never forgotten.

One evening, she was walking on her own along the bank of a small muddy river in the inner city where she lived. And there she found a sealed black garbage bag full of something or other.

She got curious, and impulsively opened it. It was stashed full of used £50 notes, all tightly bundled in small plastic bags.

She described to me how she spent quite some time counting what was there.

I asked her how much it all was.

"About five million", she said.

I was completely taken aback.

"What did you do??" I asked.

Her answer astonished me even more.

"I just handed it all to the police."

Great stories Bill/Mark. It used to be that if you handed something you found to the Police, if nobody came forward you could claim it after 2-3 months. And so while it sounds like ill-gotten gains, it's logical to assume that whoever lost it wouldn't go to the police station and make a claim. I wonder what happened to it . . .