Goodwill worker finds $39,000 in donated purse

Sept. 27 (UPI) — A Goodwill thrift store worker in New York found $39,000 in a donated purse and the company was able to track down the rightful owners.

Kindell Keyes, 51, an assistant manager at the Goodwill in Long Island City, said she initially thought someone was playing a joke on her when she discovered the envelopes full of money inside the purse.

“I started looking around like, who’s setting me up? There’s no way,” she told DNAInfo.

Keyes brought the cash to her manager, who worked with a team of Goodwill employees to track down the two California brothers who donated the purse along with other items they cleared out of their grandmother’s New York home after she died recently at age 101.

One of the men flew to New York to collect the cash Tuesday. Keyes was rewarded by Goodwill with a $3,900 bonus.

“Good behavior is recognized,” said Katy Gaul-Stigge, CEO of Goodwill Industries of Greater New York and Northern New Jersey. She said Keyes’ honesty makes her a “hero.”

The man who came to collect the money, who asked to be identified only as Bryan, also heaped praise on the assistant manager.

“It’s just so good to know that there’s people like Kindell in the world,” he said. “It’s remarkable.”

Keyes said keeping the money was never an option.

“The money didn’t belong to me,” she said. “I believe in karma. You do good, good things happen to you, so I’m not going to keep something that don’t belong to me.”