A teen who found a bag of valuable jewelry tucked inside the pocket of a donated jacket has returned the precious stash to its rightful owner, thanks to the detective work of his aunt, who encouraged him to “do the right thing.”
Luke Coelho, 17, who was born to Brazilian parents, has been living with his aunt and legal guardian, Taryn Souza, in Massachusetts since July, hoping to finish high school and enter the U.S. Marines.
With winter approaching, Luke needed warmer clothes, so he submitted a request to Andy’s Attic, a nonprofit run by his school, South High Community School in Worcester.
On Halloween, a bag of donations arrived. Upon sifting through his haul, Luke found a decommissioned work jacket and found something unexpected inside one of the pockets.
“He reached inside the pocket and there was a bag of jewelry, an embroidered pouch, with ‘Florida’ on it with an ‘F’ missing,” Souza told The Epoch Times
The contents of the pouch included a pair of flashy rhinestone earrings, a gold bracelet with what appeared to be emerald, a worn-down buffalo nickel, a two-piece wedding and engagement ring with a total of five diamonds, and two Gucci watches.
Seeing the pouch, Souza said her heart shook.
“I instantly felt some really heavy responsibility; I felt responsible for making the right choice for the person these things belong to ... and I felt the responsibility of doing the right thing so that [these two children], in the future, can learn to make the right choices.”
That night, Souza told her nephew “that this is a moment where we get to decide the type of people we are.”
“I set that expectation, I took the reins,” she said. “He just instantly agreed that [finding the owner] was the right thing to do.”
Luke’s mother, Livia Coelho, backed the decision and Souza then entered into a detective role.
Souza began searching obituaries, initially thinking the embroidered “Lorida” on the jewelry pouch would be a name. She then took the jewelry to an expert, who estimated the value of the collection to be around $5,000. One watch even bore the initials “MK.”
But, it quickly became clear that the best link to the original owner was the jacket itself.
“It had a company logo, AmeriPride, and a patch with the name ‘Dave,’” Souza said. “I actually went back to the high school, and I asked the office if I could speak with the person who’s in charge of Andy’s Attic. I asked if there was any way for us to track the donor.”
The answer she received from them was there was no way. Souza then turned to the internet. She found out that AmeriPride had changed its company name to Aramark Uniform Services. However, she was unsuccessful in getting a number of the human resources but did find the address of a branch mere walking distance from her house.
“If the jacket was donated at a Worcester school, the original owner was probably from the community and worked at this local branch,” Souza said. “I just walked through the front door, met a nice receptionist, and I said, ‘Okay, this is a weird story!’”
Melissa Kubasiak, a two-year employee of the company, caught wind of the conversation and told Souza there had been two employees named Dave: one who wore a 5XL jacket, and the other, a retired truck driver Dave Kenney, who wore a medium-large.
They then went on Facebook and found that Kenney had posted about South High Community School and had some involvement with the school that Luke attended. It was then clear that Kenney was their man.
Kubasiak and her colleague called Dave to ask if he had donated clothes to South High Community School.
Souza recalled their conversation: “He said, ‘Yeah, actually I’ve donated a lot of bags ... my mother-in-law passed away recently and we’re cleaning out the house.’”
At that moment, Souza knew that it was him.
Not only had Kenney lost his mother-in-law, but he had also lost his wife. He believes his wife must have gathered some of her mother’s jewelry in a pouch before she passed and had forgotten she was carrying it in the jacket pocket.
After Kenney confirmed the “MK” initials on the missing jewelry, Souza insisted they return the pouch that day.
“I picked up my son and Luke from school and we went right to his house. [Kenney] was actually waiting for us on the front wrap-around deck, and it was a really cool moment,” Souza said.
“He shook all of our hands ... and really made sure to drive the point home that we did the right thing. He’s had a really rough couple of years. This act of kindness and honesty really meant the world to him.”
Luke admitted he doesn’t like attention but is pleased the experience has become a talking point. He has even grown close with Kenney, and the retired truck driver has helped him secure a part-time job as a busboy.
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