HANAPEPE — Salvation Army Lt. Sarah Smuda of the Hanapepe Corps got an unusual Christmas gift late Saturday afternoon. While sorting through the organization’s red kettle collections from the Times Big Save store in Ele‘ele, Smuda discovered a 1-ounce U.S.
HANAPEPE — Salvation Army Lt. Sarah Smuda of the Hanapepe Corps got an unusual Christmas gift late Saturday afternoon.
While sorting through the organization’s red kettle collections from the Times Big Save store in Ele‘ele, Smuda discovered a 1-ounce U.S. $50 gold coin inside a coin display wallet neatly wrapped in Christmas paper.
“This is pretty amazing,” Smuda said while holding up the coin for inspection. “I checked on the Internet, and the value of this coin is around $1,800 because of its one ounce of fine gold designation.”
Smuda said volunteers from Kalaheo Missionary Church were manning the kettles at the Times Big Save store in ‘Ele‘ele, at the time the gold coin from an anonymous donor was dropped into the donations kettle.
“The Kalaheo Missionary Church group is amazing in how they generate at the kettles,” Smuda said.
“They were on from 7:30 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. and during the time they are on shift, they made more in that time than all of the other sites,” she said. “On Saturday, that group generated $1,400, and that’s not including the gold coin.”
For Smuda, the discovery of the unusual gold coin is not her first experience with unique contributions.
Three years ago, Smuda found a gold Krugerrand in a red kettle collection at the Times Big Save store in Koloa. It was the first time a Krugerrand was found in a Salvation Army redkKettle in Hawai‘i.
But the following year, Salvation Army envoy Joy Groenleer found a gold Krugerrand in a kettle manned by Boy Scouts outside Long’s Drugs in Lihu‘e
The value of a South African Krugerrand is based upon its gold content plus a premium, and each one contains exactly one ounce of fine gold, according to goldkrugerrandferret.com.
Smuda said the first Krugerrand was deposited in a plastic bag. Because the U.S. gold coin found Saturday was wrapped in gold holiday wrapping paper, Smuda said she does not believe the donations are form the same individual.
Overall, the collections in the final week leading to Christmas surged at the sites where the Hanapepe Corps maintains kettles, she said.
“Saturday, the Times Big Save ‘Ele‘ele had the highest all-around collection, finishing at $3,477.04,” Smuda said. “The other sites are the Ishihara Market, Times Big Save Waimea, Times Big Save Koloa and Sueoka’s.”
Smuda said the Hanapepe Corps had projected $1,000 a day in collections.
“On Friday, we finished with $2,400 and Saturday was almost $5,000,” Smuda said. “This is amazing. I was absolutely blown away because we’ve never made anything close to that kind of total.”
She said the Hanapepe Corps did fall short on toy collections for needy children.
“We maintain several Toys for Tots sites and collected only 17 toys for more than 300 requests,” Smuda said. “Luckily, I could get help from a friend in Honolulu, and the Rotary Club of West Kaua‘i came through with a sizeable contribution, as well.”
Kaua‘i is not alone in receiving mysterious contributions to the Salvation Army.
A mystery donor to the Twin Cities Salvation Army in Minneapolis, Minn., on at least five occasions has slipped $1,000 donations in the form of 10 tightly folded $100 bills into a red kettle, The Associated Press reported last week.
Salvation Army spokeswoman Annette Bauer told AP the organization found a cashier’s check for $23,000 in a kettle earlier in the month.
• Dennis Fujimoto, photographer and staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 253) or dfujimoto@ thegardenisland.com.
