Thrift shop manager finds $5000 in donated clothes and wins hearts by returning it to the owner

Nowadays, it is hard to find instances where selfless acts by people set high bars in society. Not many people would think about giving back money, that too a huge sum, they have found accidentally. But a thrift store manager in Burlingame, California, proved his integrity when he did not keep the $5,000 he found in a pile of donated clothes. In fact, Oliver Jolis tracked down the owner and returned the money. Jolis is truly a kindhearted person; he works at a Pick Of The Litter Thrift Shop in the San Francisco Bay Area to raise funds for injured and orphaned animals, where all profits go to the Peninsula Humane Society.

Recalling the incident, the thrift shop manager said he began organizing bags of donated clothes when something strange happened. "Money just started falling out," Jolis told CBS News. "It kept falling and falling. I was like 'This is a decent amount of money here.'" He found a total of $5,000 in cash! Also in the bag was an old piece of paper with car insurance information. Along with his coworkers, Jolis decided to get in touch with the person who regularly donates items to the store. "I said come on down I've got something for you. She came back and I gave her $5,000 in a paper bag and said 'Thank you for supporting us,'" said Jolis.

The woman, who wished to remain anonymous for her safety and fear of being targeted, told the outlet that she was surprised by Jolis's actions. "He could have just put the money in his pocket. Nobody would have known. But he didn't," she said. "Whatever you do in this world comes back to you ten times, be it negativity or positivity, it comes back." Many others also backed Jolis's character. "I wasn't surprised he found it and gave it back," said San Mateo resident Trina Pierce. "We just love Oliver. The whole staff is great but Oliver is special."

In a similar incident, a young boy was recently lauded as a real-life hero after he returned $2000 to a farmer whose wallet he found while fishing. 14-year-old Connor Halsa was just days away from becoming a freshman at Moorhead High School when he decided to go out to the Lake with his family. On a fishing trip to the Lake of the Woods with his loved ones, he caught something unusual – a wallet full of cash. He told ABC affiliate WDAY-TV, "We were doing a walleye drift, so we stopped the boat, put some spinners on, and let the waves take us." He told the outlet that he thought he had a huge fish, so he set the hook hard. But it was no walleye. It was a wallet full of cash.

He further told the channel, "My cousin opened the wallet up, and he said some words you probably shouldn't say, and he showed everyone, and we took the money out and let it dry." There was $2000 inside the wallet with a business card. The card had a telephone number on it. Connor's father suggested that he should return the wallet to its owner, and Connor agreed. He told the channel, "We didn't work hard for the money, he did, so it was his money." The wallet was eventually returned to farmer Jim Denney of Iowa. Denney couldn't manage to give any money to the family, but he did give Connor a brand-new cooler. He added that he would take Connor "as a grandson any day."