$85K found inside Value Village donation bag in Vancouver

It was a normal shift for Value Village manager Jeffrey Stonehouse. He and a colleague were in the back room of a Vancouver store on Monday, sorting through donations.

Then, while going through "a very old bag," he noticed there were some envelopes mixed in with the other household items.

That's not too uncommon, says Stonehouse, who expected to find some personal papers stuffed inside.

But when Stonehouse and his colleague opened up the envelopes, they found much more than personal papers.

"This was certainly the largest sum of money I have ever come across," he said.

Inside the envelopes was $85,000 in cash. Stonehouse says the cash appeared very old, as if someone had stashed it away and forgotten about it.

"When you're dealing with this you know immediately that the person didn't intend to have it come your way," he said.

"We take every step we can to make sure it gets reunited with the person it belongs to."

Stonehouse then contacted police who, thanks to an old bank receipt in the bag, were able to identify the money's owner — an elderly woman who now lives in a retirement home.

Her family had cleared out her storage locker and unknowingly donated the bag containing the envelopes full of cash.

"It was nice to get that money back to her," Stonehouse said.