Every now and then a news story comes along that simultaneously lifts the spirits and restores one’s faith in Humanity. This is one of those stories.
You know how sometimes you find money down the back of your sofa cushions? Well…
Three students in New York City bought a second-hand couch from a charity shop for $20.00 and discovered an astonishing $40,000 in cash (that’s about £24,000, in case you were wondering) tucked away in several envelopes that were nestled between the cushions.
Reese Werkhoven, one of the discoverers of this hidden fortune, said, “The most money I’d ever found in a couch was like fifty cents. Honestly, I’d be ecstatic to find just $5 in a couch,”
After finding $40,000, he must have been positively delirious. In and of itself, that would be an amazing story, but here’s the REALLY amazing part; the three friends actually tracked down the rightful owner of the money and gave it back.
New Yorkers (well, they live in New Paltz, just North of the city, so ‘New Paltzers’ is probably more appropriate), Reese Werkhoven, Cally Guasti and Lara Russo found a mysterious name on one of the envelopes and decided to try and return the cash.
“We all agreed that we had to bring the money back to whoever it belonged to…It’s their money, we didn’t earn it” said Ms. Guasti.
When they tracked down the rightful owner of the cash, it turned out to be an elderly woman’s life savings. The woman’s daughter had donated the couch while her mother was in hospital awaiting surgery and was completely unaware that her mother’s life savings were hidden inside it.
The woman (who did not want her identity revealed, for fairly obvious reasons) said that she had been saving the money for many years.
Her husband had given her some funds to put away each week before he sadly died of a heart condition. She had continued to stash the money in his stead and, over several years, had amassed the small fortune discovered by the three friends.
Ms. Guasti said that the old woman believed that the discovery of the money by three honest and caring people was her husband’s way of looking out for her. She said that she felt it was “supposed to happen”.
For their troubles, the widow gave out $1,000 for the friends to share.
I don’t know about you, but that one brought a tear to my eye! See, its not all doom and gloom. Not even students are all bad!
SOURCES
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-27429911
http://thelittlerebellion.com/index.php/2014/05/new-paltz-students-find-40k-in-a-couch/
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