Goodwill worker gets to keep pajamas jackpot

21-year-old single mother of three found $5,000 in donated clothes

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updated 8:51 a.m. ET May 25, 2007

GREENVILLE, S.C. - A Goodwill Industries worker who turned in more than $5,000 she found in donated pajama pants will get to keep the money because the owner could not be found.

Kelli Owens, a 21-year-old single mother of three, was sorting donated clothes as part of her training at Goodwill earlier this month when she found the money. She took it straight to her supervisor.

“She will get to keep the money,” Goodwill spokeswoman Crystal Hardesty said Friday. “It’s being invested into a scholarship fund.”

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‘I just want everybody to be proud of me’
Owens plans to go to Greenville Technical College to pursue a career in law enforcement.

“I just want everybody to be proud of me — knowing that there is someone out there that is honest,” Owens told WYFF-TV on Thursday. “I couldn’t keep it because it belonged to somebody else, you know. I couldn’t live with myself knowing that.”

The money was in an envelope with a note naming the intended recipient. The giver wrote that he or she hoped the money would be spent wisely.

Goodwill officials talked to more than 30 people, but none could give the right description, the name on the letter or where the donation was dropped off.

“We feel like we vetted it very well,” Hardesty said. “The story got a lot of publicity.”