with all the bad shit that goes on in the world today, its easy to overlook things like this:
Rewards swell to $4,000 for homeless man
Offers of cash, clothes and job pour in for finder of $21,000 in bonds.
Kim Kozlowski / The Detroit News
Robin Buckson / The Detroit News
Rewards worth $4,000 were pledged Monday to Charles Moore, the local homeless man who found nearly $21,000 worth of U.S. savings bonds in the trash and returned them to the owner’s family.
Many residents here and in other states were aghast that the son of the deceased bond owner expressed the family’s gratitude by giving a $100 tip to Moore, who was featured in a Detroit News story Saturday.
So they took action: A Belleville man sent him eight trash bags full of bottle returns and a bowl of coins. Three people pledged a combined $2,500. By the end of the day, two businessmen had given Moore $1,200, a shopping spree at a men’s clothing store and a lead on a job.
The best part of the day?
“Seeing and knowing people care, and they’re willing to help a total stranger,” said Moore, 59, who plans to use the money to find an apartment.
Homeless for the first time, Moore found 31 bonds in a bag of clothes in a Detroit trash bin while searching for empty bottles to return for deposit money. He took the bonds to his counselors at Neighborhood Service Organization, which provides a daily breakfast to the homeless. Workers at the nonprofit group helped him track down the family of the bonds’ owner, Ernest Lehto, who died two years ago.
The bonds were purchased during the 1980s at a face value of $8,900 but have matured to $20,738.88.
They were payable to his widow, Marian Lehto of Rochester Hills, but her son, Neil, picked them up at the social service agency. He gave Moore $100 for his honesty – an amount he attributed to his mother.
“I was thankful for it,” said Moore, who lost his job in Toledo as a roofer, moved back to his native Michigan and can’t find a job.
Many readers called and e-mailed, saying the $100 sum was cheap, embarrassing, even a slap in the face.
“That’s a disgrace,” said Tony Grillo, a general contractor in Macomb Township. “You tip a waitress at least 20 percent!” But Lehto, who received scores of vitriolic e-mails and phone calls all weekend, said his 82-year-old mother is the sole beneficiary, and she made the decision about the $100 reward.
“That generation of people doesn’t see this as windfall, they see this was an entitlement,” said Lehto, a West Bloomfield attorney.
“That generation of people would consider $100 as an adequate reward.”
Richard Edwards, 75, disagreed.
“He’s an attorney and he should know (that) the going rate for finding stocks and bonds is 10 percent,” said Edwards, of Eastpointe.
“He should have never allowed his mother to give that poor old guy $100.”
Lehto initially was attacked as a cheapskate by the chief executive officer of Millionairehelp.com – a Web site where cyberbeggars ask people of high incomes for money. But after Lehto explained it was his mother’s decision, the Pensacola, Fla., group pledged $1,000 in the name of Ernest Lehto.
“We do believe that this sizzle of the story has caused his family some unfair retribution,” said Ericka Boussarhane, CEO of Millionaire.com. “One thousand dollars would probably be more beneficial to the gentleman.”
Others also stepped up: A Troy woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, pledged $500 to Moore.
David C. Smith, an Albuquerque, N.M., resident who is building a dream home with his fiancee, pledged $1,000. He said that if a homeless person found bonds belonging to them worth $21,000, they wouldn’t have thought twice about what to do.
“We would have given him the whole amount, period,” said Smith. “No questions asked.”
Even a local billiards owner offered Moore a night on the town with food, drinks and unlimited games of pool. “He can be my guest,” said Jesse Nyikon, owner of Ball & Cue & Brew in Lincoln Park. “He did the right thing.”
Two businessmen in Troy, Dick Wolski and Ken Zorn, started talking about Moore’s honesty and his modest reward in the office Tuesday and by day’s end, they pulled together $1,200. They also paid for $250 in clothing for Moore at Men’s Warehouse and lined him up a job interview at a local cleaning company.
“Here’s a man who by all rights should be worried and thinking about himself but takes the time to think about others,” said Wolski, chief financial officer of Lifestyle Lift Holding in Troy, where Zorn is an attorney. “What a lesson. Isn’t that what we’re all supposed to be doing?”