Athens man loses envelope with $2,000 cash; but it's found by an honest person

Athens automotive mechanic Jimmy Little vividly remembers the distress of the evening of July 3 when he reached into his pocket to pay for a meal at the KFC on Barnett Shoals Road.

An envelope with $2,030 in cash was gone.

“I almost had a heart attack,” Little said.

“My wife and I were going on vacation, so I took the money out of the bank. We were flying to Tampa the next morning,” he recalled Friday in an interview with the Banner-Herald.

“I called my wife and said, ‘Honey I can’t find the money. I called all my customers and nobody could find the money. I tore my shop apart – no money,” he recalled.

But Little, who owns Jimmy’s Automotive on Whit Davis Road, said his vacation was paid for so they left Athens as scheduled.

But on their return on July 8, an employee with Synovus bank called to say, “Today is your lucky day.”

An employee at the Publix on Barnett Shoals Road, where he made a stop prior to KFC, had found the envelope with the money and turned it into customer service, where it was placed in a safe.

“Normally I don’t put the withdrawal slip in the envelope, but that day the bank put it there,” he said, explaining that's how they identified him as the owner.

Little remembers he called his wife with the good news.

“My wife is a prayer warrior and I’m a deacon in my church. We don’t stop praying. At the end of the day, it’s God doing what God does,” he said.

Athens-Clarke police took possession of the money after the Publix manager notified them of the find.

“What a stand-up action by the Publix employee,” police detective Lt. Enrique Rivera said in an e-mail. “We’re glad the employee found the envelope quickly.”

Little said he wants to thank the employee by offering her a “love offering.”

Honesty is a good policy, according to Little.

“I’ve done the same thing in the past. People always say, ‘Pay it forward,’ Little said, recalling that he once stopped on Timothy Road after seeing an object in the road. He stopped and it was a bank bag with cash, which he turned in to the police department.

Little said his business was also helped years ago by a benefactor.

“I started this business 36 years ago with nothing. I’m a recovered addict – drug and alcohol free. I’m truly blessed,” he said.

He said it was about 11 years ago that a man came into his life who helped him relocate to his current shop. The man, who had stopped for mechanical work, later offered to work for him without pay.

“He said, ‘I speak five different languages and I’ll teach you how to run a business successful,” Little recalled the man saying.

The man, whom Little later learned was a millionaire, told him, “I’ve never met a person like you before. You won’t fail and I’ll see to that.’”

“There are good people in Athens,” said the man helped by a millionaire and a grocery store worker. “Don’t’ get me wrong. There are some bad people out there, but if you’re a good person, you have to stay a good person no matter how ugly it gets.”