When Bryan Todd lost a wallet with $400 on a snowmobiling trip in Haliburton with his co-workers, he figured it gone for good.
He took great pains to cancel credit cards and replace what he lost. But when a stranger arrived at his door more than two weeks later to return the wallet, cash still within, he said he could not believe it.
“I was just overwhelmed, the fact it was all there in this day and age. We do a lot of work in the City of Toronto. This doesn’t happen in the city,” Todd said. “So very impressed you guys know what’s important. People are important.”
The wallet, lost Feb. 27, was found by 10-year-old Hayley Vandenhoek, who worked with her family to return it to its rightful owner. Vandenhoek said she found it in a ditch at the end of her grandparents’ driveway, which links to a snowmobile trail.
“It’s always right to do a nice thing and return something,” she said.
The family turned to Facebook and Haliburton Highlands OPP. But with Todd’s address listed on his licence within the wallet, Andrew Vandenhoek, Hayley’s father, took it upon himself to hand-deliver the wallet.
He took it to Todd’s home in Uxbridge March 15, two hours from Haliburton, on his way back home to Shelbourne.
“I was going home anyway,” he said. “A long time since I have been there, go for a nice drive and make sure he got his stuff back, because no matter who you hand it to, you never know.”
The gesture was meaningful to Todd and he made sure the Vandenhoek family knew it.
“As screwed up as our world seems to be today, with the (corona)virus, with the haste and lack of friendliness people show to each other, you and your daughter did something that shows there are good people out there,” Todd said in a text message. “You could have easily taken the money and cards … You are an amazing dad, and you have an amazing daughter.
“Families like yours are what our world needs in these troubling times.”
“It’s almost too much, to be honest with you,” Vandenhoek said. “It’s just doing the right thing.”
Todd’s wife, Elizabeth Todd, provided Vandenhoek with $100 for gas. Vandenhoek said he intends to give to his daughter as a reward.
“Teaches a lesson,” he said. “No good deed gets unrewarded.”
