North Texas

Coins to Cash: Mystery Woman Makes Large Donation to a Red Kettle

The Salvation Army says one woman, whose identity remains a mystery, has made the largest random donation to an area red kettle so far this year.

"We get a lot of interesting donations, and we get a lot of regular donations. But as far as the random unexpected gift, this is the biggest gift we received all year," said Captain W. Patrick Jones, with the Arlington Corps of The Salvation Army.

The donation happened on two different visits at the same Kroger grocery store on Broad Street in Mansfield.

First, 15 silver dollar coins were discovered on Friday when a kettle was opened at the end of the day.

On Tuesday, a woman put 80 silver dollar coins into a kettle.

"It takes a little time to get that many coins into one kettle, and so I imagine there was some conversation with our bell ringer," Jones said. "She shared that these belonged to her husband and when he passed away she was trying to decide what to do with them and she chose to give them to The Salvation Army so we can help other people."

The Salvation Army believes all 95 silver dollar coins were donated by the same woman.

"We know these coins are valued at about $15-20 per piece," Jones said. "We figure we now have about $1,400 to $1,900 worth of value, which we can then sell these coins and turn that into cash to help other people."

Jones said while they don't know who the donor is, they'd like to make sure somehow she knows how much the organization appreciates her kindness.

"I would just love to have the opportunity to say thank you so much for thinking of The Salvation Army and thinking of others during this Christmas season," Jones said. "We are going to be able to take this and help so many people throughout the year because of her generosity."

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