When a teenager found a veteran’s wallet, which had $2,300 in it, he gave it back right away. Not long after that, his mother sent him a text message.
The Mercury News says that Tommy O’Connor, a senior at Irvington High School in Fremont, California, was leaving a 7-Eleven when he had a “What would you do?” moment. After getting a soda at the store, the teen was walking back to class at Irvington when he saw a wallet on the ground.
When he took it in his hands and looked inside, he saw a lot of $100 bills. Tommy didn’t count the money at the time, but it was later found that there was $2,300 in the wallet. Tommy looked at the big pile of cash and had to decide whether to try to find the wallet’s owner or go on a shopping spree.
Tommy didn’t hesitate on that fateful Tuesday to make the right choice for one veteran. The only choice was to do the right thing, but there was a problem. Tommy looked in the wallet for the owner’s name but couldn’t find it. But he still wouldn’t think about keeping the money for himself.
Instead, Tommy gave the wallet and money to Anna Gomez, his paraeducator at school. “He cared so much about finding the owner of the wallet,” Gomez said. “He didn’t even think of anything else. He knew what he had to do right away.”
Tommy said, “I didn’t count it when I saw it.” “I just thought it was probably someone’s rent or something,” he said. As Gomez went through the wallet with them, they found 23 $100 bills. Tommy never thought of doing anything other than the right thing, though.
In the end, a Veteran’s Identification Card was found in the wallet. This showed who the owner was and that he had served in the military. Tommy O’Connor and Anna Gomez talked to Sarah Smoot, the principal of Irvington High School. She helped them get in touch with the vet to return the wallet.
After the wallet and money were returned, the owner, who didn’t want to be named, made sure that the money was for his rent and gave Tommy $50. But Tommy’s story is so much more than that. And his parents have a lot of reasons to be happy.
Tommy had a lot of reason to want the money. The teen’s family lives from paycheck to paycheck, so the day before he found the wallet, he didn’t even have enough money for lunch. Tommy’s father, Ron O’Connor, told KPIX 5: “We live month to month, so it’s a lot of money, and I’m so proud of him for doing that.”