He saved $23,000 for his dream motorhome and stashed it in an old Vans box. His wife threw it away while cleaning, but a worker at the recycling plant found the money and returned it to him.

Endings are not always happy but this man’s was. A lot. Was about to lose all savings to buy your dream motorhome, but miraculously recovered the money. It was not easy and, above all, it depended on the honesty of third parties.

In this beautiful story, the protagonists are the box of some old Vans sneakers, a wonderful wad of dollars and a very good Samaritan worker at a recycling plant. It happened five years ago, but it’s worth telling.

“The odds of finding it aren’t much better than finding a needle in a haystack.”

Nowadays, cash is not very popular: the usual thing is that what is saved is kept in the bank. And that generous transactions to purchase a vehicle are not made in cash. But this resident of Ashland, Oregon, opted for the old way: hoarding the money in his home. Specifically, in a shoe box.

It was the amount to buy a new motorhome. To raise those 23,000 dollarsabout 20,700 euros at the current exchange rate, he got rid of his old motorhome and his pick-up. He also saved on himself. Once he reached the figure, He kept the wad of $20 bills in the aforementioned box of a Vans.safe from possible theft.

But recycling day has arrived, as they call it at home, where they are very fond of recycling, according to what he himself says. His wife had no idea that the box of those old sneakers had been converted into a discreet temporary safe. So He threw it in the recycling bin.

It wasn’t until the next day that they realized that They had thrown more than $20,000 in the trash.. And the truck had already gone to empty the container: they had sold the motorhome and pick-up for nothing. But they did not give up.

First they called the local headquarters of the recycling company, Recology. There they were told that what was collected by the truck had already been sent to the headquarters, in Samoa (California), more than 300 km from Ashland. In a recycling plant, what is susceptible to a second life is classified and what is not: the first is sent for treatment and the second is sent to the landfill.

This is what he indicated Linda Wise, general manager of this Recology plantwith whom he also contacted. Hope gave him rather little. “We collect more than 100 tons of material a day. The chances of finding it are not much better than finding a needle in a haystack“he commented according to NBC.

In fact, Wise explained to them that most of the material received in that batch had already been classified. Which meant that a good part of it was already headed for the landfill. There were only a few bags left to sort..

Despite this, the plant director ordered the workers to be alert in case they found the box or the wad of bills. It was the second. Nick Page, in the cardboard line, found the prize. And he was honest enough not to keep that amount: “It’s probably the largest amount of money I’ve ever had in my hands,” Page commented..

The honest worker took the wad of bills to managementwhich they told. In total, a little more than $300 was missing: a lesser evil after having been dancing among piles of cardboard and garbage.

The Oregon man’s joy was enormous, as is obvious: they had already given up the money for lost. He offered to give the $23.00 to the employees as a reward, but Wise refused. The company would take care of rewarding them. Page certainly deserved it: he gave the joy of his life to this family and it would have been very easy not to. He did the good deed of the day, of the year, and possibly of the decade.

Foto principal: Recology.