Anonymous Donor Mailing $50, $100 Gifts to Minnesotans Affected by Coronavirus

Several Minnesotans were baffled when they looked in their mailboxes and found gifts of $50 and $100 in cash.

When Skyler Johnson opened her mailbox, she found a ray of sunshine in the form of a crisp, clean, $50 bill tucked inside a card which read, “I’m sorry the government has a terrible pandemic response plan. Here’s a little something to make up for your losses.”

“I cried,” Johnson told KARE after she opened the note.

The card and the money arrived just as she was laid off from her part-time nanny job, and her baking business called Born at Home Bakery was losing money.

“All of my orders have canceled,” Skyler says. “Nobody’s having birthday parties, nobody’s having weddings.”

“It’s just $50, but next week it could be putting food on our table for our kids,” Skyler says.

Skyler never found out who was behind the anonymous donation and note.

Arielle and Jeremy Brandenberg are also wondering who is behind the anonymous donation. Arielle went to the mailbox on Monday when she found the same anonymous note with a $50 bill tucked inside.

“It was bills, bills, bills and then this,” Arielle says.

The money came just as phone orders had gone silent for Jeremy’s tile-setting business, called Clean Cut Tile.

“That’s definitely help with some groceries,” he says.

The same card also arrived at the home of Rana Leonhardi, except there was $100 instead of $50.

Rana, who does not know the other families, is married to an executive chef who just lost his job. As for who sent it, she says she does not have a clue.

“I don’t know,” she says. “Little miracle worker I guess.”