A young man working at a Goodwill Donation Center in San Diego found $46,000 hidden in a donation.
And this is the case of someone doing the right thing.
“It’s like a museum in here,” manager Jessee Diaz said. “You just never know what certain things are.”
And that’s how it is most days for Diaz, sorting through boxes at the Del Cerro Goodwill.
A lot of stuff is useful, and a lot of it is not.
Saturday started the same way.
“It was just a regular day taking donations,” Diaz said.
That’s until Diaz came across a box with some type of fryer inside.
But he looked closer.
“In the box, there was tinfoil,” Diaz said. “I almost threw it in the trash.”
He says it seemed strange, almost suspicious.
Curiosity got the better of him.
“And then when I opened it, it was five envelopes of cash,” Diaz said. “I couldn’t believe it for a split second. I was like, this is a lot of money, is it even real you know? Are these bills even real?”
But they were real, every one of them, $46,000 worth to be exact.
Diaz knows because he counted it with a co-worker.
“It probably took us like 45 minutes,” Diaz said. “It was nonstop. We were like, ‘How much more?’ I was actually bored.”
Now, a lot of people might look at money like that and slip it right in their pocket.
Who would know?
After all, the people who dropped the boxes off didn’t even realize.
“There’s a lot of people who depend on us, and it’s just the right thing to do. I didn’t think twice,” Diaz said.
Tracking down who it belonged to was a lucky break there, too.
Goodwill loss prevention took the time to check for receipts–and there was a match.
A 79-year-old woman’s husband had just died.
Her daughter-in-law took the boxes to Goodwill to help clear out clutter, never knowing the money was stashed away.
Diaz was there to give it back.
“She was like, ‘Oh my Gosh,'” Diaz said. “Unbelievable.”
And when asked would he make the same decision again, Diaz never hesitated.
“For sure, if it happened here again, I would return it right away.”
The family says the saved money was going to be used for a trip to Japan.