CHILDREN’S CHARITY Bernardos has issued an appeal after a large sum of money was discovered inside a pair of curtains donated to a Dublin store.
The woman donor, who was either extremely forgetful or extremely generous, left the curtains into Barnardos in Rathmines at lunchtime last Wednesday.
The charity has now gone public in an attempt to locate the woman and give her the money back – assuming she had not intended to give it to them as a donation.
The volunteer who accepted her donation knew the woman to see but knew neither her name nor from where she had come.
The only thing that seemed unusual about her donation was that it was a single item. Most customers donate a number of items in one visit to the shop.
The donation was taken to the stock room for examination by a volunteer who saw a cloth bag attached to the back of the curtains.
He opened it and, to his surprise, found a “substantial amount of money”, according to Barnardos volunteer Bernadette Harrington.
Ms Harrington said for security reasons they could not disclose the exact sum or comment on suggestions in other media that it was in the order of €7,000.
For the same reasons, she could not give a description of the curtains, except to say that they have a “very distinctive pattern”.
Ms Harrington said the woman who left in the curtains probably did not know the money was there and would therefore want it back.
“Some people do leave money anonymously but I don’t think that was the case here,” she said. “This was a substantial sum of money for somebody and we want to give it back.”
The shop has often received valuables inadvertently included with donated items and have received frantic calls to retrieve jewellery contained in donated shoes and money left in books.
Anybody with information should contact Barnados on 01 8612070.
