HOMELESS
MAN FINDS TREASURE

Topics: Gratitude; Integrity; Poverty; Rewards; Riches; Self-centeredness; Stinginess

References: Proverbs 10:9; Matthew 6:19–21; 7:12; 16:26; 19:23; Luke 6:31; 12:15–34; 1 Timothy 6:10; Hebrews 13:5; James 2:8

In 2006, Charles Moore lost his job as a roofer in Toledo, Ohio, and decided to return to his hometown of Detroit to look for work. He couldn’t find a job, however, and soon found himself homeless. In July, while looking through a trash bin for bottles, Moore found thirty-one U.S. Savings Bonds. With the help of the Neighborhood Service Organization, a local nonprofit group, Moore tracked down the owner of the bonds, Ernest Lehto, who had bought the bonds during the 1980s at a face value of $8,900. By the time Moore found them, the bonds were worth $20,738. Ernest Lehto died in 2004, but Moore returned the bonds to his son, Neil Lehto. For his honesty and effort, Moore was given $100. He was thankful for the money.

When local media picked up the story, however, Neil Lehto began receiving phone calls and emails from angry people calling him cheap and ungrateful. Lehto, a lawyer, blamed his eighty-two-year-old mother, saying that she was the sole beneficiary and had determined the reward amount. “That generation of people would consider $100 to be an adequate reward,” he said.

Now aware of Moore’s need, the community began to support the homeless man. One man sent him eight trash bags filled with bottle returns and a bowl of coins. Jesse Nyikon, a local billiards owner, offered Moore a night on the town, complete with food, drinks, and unlimited pool. As the story began to grow, so did the number of people expressing gratitude for Moore’s integrity. Dick Wolski and Ken Zorn—two businessmen from Troy, Michigan—pulled together a gift of $1,200. They also paid for $250 worth of clothing at Men’s Wearhouse. Best of all, they lined him up with a job interview at a local cleaning company.

“Here’s a man who by all rights should be worried and thinking about himself but who takes the time to think about others,” Wolski said. “What a lesson! Isn’t that what we’re all supposed to be doing?”

—Kim Kozlowski, “Virtue, $100 Not His Only Reward,” Chicago Tribune (July 26, 2006)