Cash found, right thing done

Published 11:55 am Tuesday, March 17, 2009

When Margie Smith and her two daughters, Tiffany and Tara Ann, found a clear, 1-inch thick bag containing approximately $4,000, there was no hesitation—turn it in.

“We had no thoughts of keeping it,” Tara Ann Smith, a 14-year-old freshman at Bainbridge High School, said Monday.

“That’s just something we were raised to do, turn money in that isn’t ours,” Tara said.

Email newsletter signup

And with that, Margie Smith said that is what she is most proud of—that Tiffany and Tara demonstrated in an instance what doing the “right thing” was all about.

“I was pretty proud of them,” said Margie Smith.

The three ladies were walking into Kmart on Friday at approximately 4 p.m. to buy some things for Tiffany, a sophomore at the University of Georgia majoring in education. In front of them in the parking lot was a clear bag with $100 bills on top.

The initial reaction was that it wasn’t real; that the bag contained play money, Tara said.

But when they picked it up and saw a deposit slip inside, it was understood what it was—it was Kmart’s deposit.

“The deposit slip made it so real,” Tara said. Without any questions, that’s when Tiffany and Tara both concluded to just turn it into Kmart.

Managers of Kmart gave the family a $25 gift card, Margie Smith said.

As for the upbringing of Tiffany and Tara, Margie said of her and her husband, Terrelle Smith, “We must have done something right.”