Sean C. Morgan
Do the right thing, and it can still pay off, like it did for 8-year-old Dani Stafford.
She found $2,800 in an envelope while at Hilltop Market with a friend of her mother.
They turned the money in to the owner of the store, Sean Singh, who turned it over to the Sweet Home Police Department.
Police were unable to locate the owner of the money, and Thursday, Feb. 3, they gave the cash to Dani.
“We’d like the owner to be found,” said Dani’s mother, Darlene Stafford. “We tried to find the owner, but they couldn’t find them.”
“I’m so proud of you, that you did the right thing,” Stafford told her daughter as she received the money.
Dani found the money near the jerky and the register, Stafford said. “She picked it up and said ‘I found this.’ She goes, ‘Mom it was heavy.’”
Dani said she wanted to buy a new bed, but she didn’t know what else she would do with the money.
“It couldn’t have come at a better time,” Stafford said. She is unemployed although she had an interview for a job last week, and her husband has been hurt.
Det. Cyndi Pichardo presented the money to Dani.
“You did really great things, and I think you’re going to get a new bed,” Pichardo said.
When people find something of value, she said, they are supposed to follow a legal process to find the owner or they can turn the item over to the police, who also have a procedure based on city ordinance and state statutes to find the owner.
If the owner doesn’t show up for the item, Pichardo said, then the finder can apply to receive the item.
“I won toaster strudels on-line this morning,” Darlene Stafford said. “So I knew it was going to be a good day.”