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Anonymous donor drops gold coin in Salvation Army kettle

ALPENA, Mich. — While Alpena’s Salvation Army was short of their donations goal for their kettle bell program, Captain Amy Cedervall says they are still able to work with and are grateful for what they’ve received.

Along with the contribution from Alpena citizens, they also accepted some other interesting donations as well. One of which included several $100 bills paper clipped together and dropped off at up to five different drop off locations. Cedervall says that this anonymous donor has been doing this for the past four or five years. “It’s just exciting. It’s fun,” she said. “Obviously the person wants to stay anonymous. We appreciate that and we understand. It’s humbling for us to know that somebody believes in us enough and what we’re doing to trust us with that much of a donation.”

However, that’s not the only interesting donation they received. While sifting through one of the kettles, Cedervall said she noticed a coin that wasn’t like the rest. “I was shocked,” she said. “When I first saw it , just the little corner of it sticking out, I thought it was a dollar, like the gold dollar coin, and we pull those out because our change machine doesn’t do well with them. So if we see them we try to pull them out and as soon as I tried to pull it out I realized very quickly that it was not a dollar coin.”

Cedervall said that before she and her husband arrived on the scene six years ago, it was pretty common for someone to drop a gold coin in a kettle every year, but this is the first year that they’ve received one. While they don’t have an exact number right now, the 1 ounce of gold in the coin alone values it just under $1,500.

Cedervall said they are thankful to both of these anonymous donors and also everyone else who sacrificed their own money for the salvation army’s cause. “We appreciate every donation. We appreciate the people who put the pocket change in because that adds up and that means something to us and it helps us be able to provide the services that we provide year-round.”