Charitable donors have accidentally given away stacks of cash and valuable jewelry by simply not checking clothing pockets, shoe boxes and furniture drawers before handing off their goods.
Last week, $2,500 was found in a donation to a Glen Carbon, Ill., Goodwill store. About $40,000 turned up at a Goodwill in Monroe, Mich., in late January.
In just the last two years, about $20,000 in accidental donations came into the 42 stores and five separate sites in the MERS Goodwill system, which includes the Glen Carbon store and others in the St. Louis area.
Add in mistaken donations since 2008, and the figure rises to about $37,000, says the group.
Sugarcreek Borough, Pa., Police Chief Matt Carlson says that in addition to jewelry and money, his local Salvation Army has found guns and knives that were apparently donated by mistake. The store also had a very surprising discovery in February: a bag of marijuana.
"It was packaged for distribution," says Carlson, who doubts the owner will come forward to reclaim it.
Charity group workers say donors sometimes forget to check the inside of pockets and pocketbooks before they drop off goods. Some contributors inadvertently pick up valuables from their car trunks while scooping up other items to be donated.
Accidental offerings also arrive when someone brings in the belongings of a person who had died or moved away, says Michael Meyer, vice president of donated goods retail for Goodwill Industries International.
The approximately $40,000 that turned up in Monroe, Mich., belonged to an elderly man. He was moving to a nursing home and a relative who helped to clean out the man's belongings didn't realize there was cash tucked into the clothes.
"On a daily basis, we find change in a pocket or purse, maybe a couple dollars at most. But nothing even close to this amount," says Tyler Gedelian, a store manager who found the bulk of the money in the pocket of a robe. The res! t was found in suit jackets.
Among Gedelian's first thoughts: "This could be somebody's life savings or an important nest egg."
His next step: contacting local police, who used an identity card also found in the clothing to locate the owner and return the cash.
Police are still seeking the person who dropped off the $2,500 in Glen Carbon.
The stacks of bills found by workers going through donated clothing at the Monroe Goodwill store in Monroe, Mich.(Photo: The Monroe Evening News, Kim Brent/AP)
Both Goodwill and the Salvation Army say they do their best to return items that appear to have been donated by mistake.
Cissy Altevogt, store manager at the Goodwill who discovered the $2,500 last Monday, says this is the third time her store has gotten big bucks in an unintentional donation. In 2011, workers found $2,500, and in 2008 about $7,500 turned up.
"We found the rightful owner the last two times," says Altevogt, who offers this advice to the philanthropic: "Make sure you check your pockets and the drawers and inside books" prior to dropping off any goods.
Her tips are timely. "With spring cleaning right around the corner, donations will start to pick up," says Monroe, Mich., Goodwill store manager Gedelian.
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