If you found tens of thousands of dollars in cold hard cash - would you keep it or would you turn it in? Well, for one Oklahoma woman, it was a no-brainer - she knew she had to return every penny.
Andrea Lessing, an employee at Goodwill Industries in Norman, had been sorting through donated clothing at the store when she made the unexpected discovery.
"You want to make sure there’s good product, there’s no stains, there’s no holes, there’s no tears, there’s no rips," Lessing explained to KFOR.
Tangled up in sweaters were stacks of $100 bills amounting to an eyewatering sum of $42,000!
"There were just stacks of just envelopes and it just contained $100 bills," Lessing told KFOR. "My first thought was — it’s fake."
But in actual fact, each of the $100 dollar bills was 100% genuine.
Lessing knew, however, that her conscience wouldn't permit her to keep the money that someone had clearly donated by accident.
"I know what could be risked stealing that money and I do believe in karma," the store assistant told KFOR. "I do believe that if you do something good, something good will come back to you."
So, she alerted the store over the lost cash, and fortunately for her, when the owners were made aware of the situation, they gifted her $1,000.
"I never expected anything like this to happen to me, of all people," Lessing added. "To me, it was just another normal day at work. I was in the back sorting. I never expected to come across $42,000. I made the right decision, and I did the right thing."
She explained she wants to use part of the money on her six-year-old daughter's birthday celebrations.
"I just want to say thank you because (the owner) was a blessing," Lessing told Fox News. "I thought I blessed him, but he turned right around and blessed me."
"He restored my faith that there are really good people out there even through this pandemic. We don’t know their situation so it’s better to just be kind," she added.
Jim Priest, CEO of Goodwill Industries of Central Oklahoma, has since praised Lessing for handing in the lost money, telling Fox News that the employee showed "integrity".
