Kicker - A truly good-will gesture

Andrea Lessings works at a Goodwill thrift store in Norman, Oklahoma.

LESSING: Just from working here for about a month and a half, I’ve noticed that there are a lot of weird things that have been donated.

And she told KFOR News that she recently found a really weird thing among the donations: Two sweaters wrapped together, around what she thought were books. But that’s not what she found.

LESSING: Stacks of just envelopes and it just contained $100 bills. My first thought was – it’s fake.

But the $100 bills were real, and there were 420 of them. That’s right, $42,000 in cash.

Being human, Lessings said, sure, it was a temptation. But she did the right thing. She brought it to the attention of a manager, and they were able to track down the person who unwittingly donated the cash.

And the rightful owners of the cash decided to reward Lessings for her honesty. Goodwill’s Vice President of Donated Goods, Frank Holland presented that reward.

HOLLAND: They asked us if we would give you $1,000 that came out of that money and give that back to you. [Lessings cries]

An emotional Andrea Lessings said she planned to spend much of it on birthday presents for her 6-year-old.

A story of good will in more ways than one.

(AP Photo/Jeff Chiu) The sign to a closed Goodwill store is shown in Berkeley, Calif., Tuesday, March 9, 2021.

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