Mar 28, 4:41 PM (ET)
MANITOWOC, Wis. (AP) - Plastic Easter eggs which a family mistakenly donated to a Salvation Army thrift store before realizing they had been stuffed full of cash remained missing Monday after word of the incident spread during the holiday weekend.
Thrift Store manager Paul Kolb said a woman came into the store earlier this month looking for plastic Easter eggs that had been among her grandmother's possessions, which the family donated after she passed away in January.
"I hoping some goodhearted soul will come forward," Kolb said Monday.
The woman had kept only one of her grandmother's possessions - her diary.
After flipping through it, she found out too late what a special Easter her grandmother had planned.
"Grandmother was planning for the Easter egg hunt of hunts," Kolb said. "The eggs this year were filled with cash instead of candy."
"She had carefully packed them full and recorded everything in her diary."
The woman, who did not want to be named, did not reveal how much cash was in the plastic eggs, but she told Kolb it was "a considerable amount."
Kolb said it's not the first time someone has called looking to reclaim sentimental objects or things donated by mistake.
He asked the person who purchased the eggs to return them to the original owner.
"As a thrift store manager, I can understand the excitement of finding a treasure. However, under these circumstances, you have only found a lost item, mistakenly given in good faith to benefit those in need," Kolb said.
Kolb recalled how he thought the soft-spoken woman who came into the store looking for Easter eggs was just another customer.
"Little did I know, the hunt had just begun."
How hard would it have been to check the damn things before donating them. Surely it was obvious something was in them and it wasn't candy....