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In April last year, we found a safe with bundles of cash in it after cutting it open with a snipping tool and cash started to flow out of it.
The safe was found by yard staff when they were cutting open the safe. There was no record of which customer brought the safe in, or where the money came from, so it was handed in to the police in. After a few months of investigation, the police confirmed it wasn’t proceeds of crime or that it hadn’t been recorded as missing. Once the investigation was over, we went to court to ask for the money to be returned to them so we could give it to a local charity.
The cash was a mix of old tender and some current tender, half notes and damaged notes. The value was mostly made up of £10 notes. It was also very dusty which suggested it hadn’t been touched for a few years before it was brought to us for processing.
The chosen charities were EACH Children’s Hospice, which has been a charity the business has supported for many years. St Elizabeth Hospice is Sackers chosen charity of the year after signing up to their 30th Partner scheme so we also wanted to give half the money to them.
The money wasn’t counted when it went to the police but the initial guestimate was in the region of £20,000. Once it was tallied up and the invalid money had been removed, the value which could be cashed by the bank which was £14,416. Sackers rounded the donations up to £8,000 for each charity.
Adrian Dodds (Joint MD) said “the money was never ours in the first place so there was no question it had to go to charity. We fought to get it back because we wanted to keep it locally invested for the benefit of Suffolk”.
The story made international news after Sackers went to court and got the money back from the police. It hit the hearts of many people with the business receiving hundreds of messages for donating the money to charity.
David Dodds (Joint MD) said “We have supported EACH for many years and it was one charity we wanted to ensure had half of what was in the safe. The other half goes to another fantastic charity, St Elizabeth Hospice. It completes our partnership off nicely. It was important to us that the money stayed local”
Harriett Warriner, EACH Matron “This wonderful and unique donation has been so well received by everyone at EACH. Sackers’ extraordinary find and even more extraordinary generosity has also captured the imagination of both the media and the public – helping greatly with our awareness raising too! We rely so heavily on voluntary donations to deliver our services and donated treasure like this really does make a significant difference to local children, young people and their families.”
Director of Income, Hannah Bloom from St Elizabeth Hospice says “What an incredible find, we are very grateful to Sackers for choosing to make such an incredible donation to St Elizabeth Hospice. At the hospice, we aim to improve the lives of people living with progressive and terminal illnesses. Each year we provide care and support to over 2500 local people and their families. We are passionate about ensuring there is no charge for our services, and we rely on the support of the local community and businesses in order to enable us to continue to do this. Thank you”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
