Stockton, CA — A Goodwill employee sorting through donated books found over $10,000,
Lakeisha Williams found an envelope with $10,500 in $100 bills inside. Williams joked that she thought about keeping the money, but said she knew she had to try and return it to its rightful owner.
“My concern was somebody was out that money, and I would have liked for them to get it back,” she told KXTV. Williams brought the money to her manager about a month ago, but no one has claimed it. Authorities were contacted just in case someone reports money missing.
Williams admitted that she thought she would have gotten something for turning in the money.
“It would have been nice for them to say ‘hey, you get some kickback, thanks for being honest and turning it in,’” she said.
David Miller, president of Goodwill Industries, said Williams’ good deed did not go unnoticed.
“What we did is we take the money … and put it into a holding account, and we wait usually a pretty good amount of time to see if somebody comes forward and identifies themselves and says they made a donation and a mistake,” he said.
The money will be held in the bank account for “no less than 120 days,” Miller said.
“If nothing happens at that point … and all indicators are that nobody is claiming the money, at that point in time we put it into our normal donation stream revenue for our agency,” Miller said. He added that the organization has a policy to “reward employees for their honesty and integrity.”
While the decision of how much money to award Lakeisha Williams is up to Miller, he said it would most likely be up to 10 percent.
Since Williams is a fairly new employee, she was unaware of the organization’s policy. But if no one claims the $10,000 within the next three months, she’ll be rewarded at least $1,000.
Last year, 15 people claimed to have accidentally donated $14,000 to a St. Louis Goodwill.
What would you do if you found an envelope with $10,000 inside?