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“I ran after the car waving the purse but the people didn’t see me so I took it back to the “Y” and opened it to look for a phone number. I couldn’t find one, but then I found this wad of cash, of hundred dollar bills.

“I never thought about keeping the money. It wasn’t mine. I grew up going to church. I sang in the choir. And you don’t keep something that doesn’t belong to you.

“I don’t know how you could.”

Let’s think about that, shall we: You are homeless. You are desperate. You find $10,000. And you think of the person who lost the money, not of your own financial worries, like not having a roof over your head. The purse was found in October and the story, as it evolved and became public, struck Calgarians in a soft and squishy place and was ultimately voted by CBC viewers as the city’s “most heartwarming story of 2012.”

And here’s why: the money was reunited with its rightful owner. They met with the woman, thanked her profusely and presented her with a $500 reward. There were other acts of kindness. A homeowner with an empty room to rent invited the woman to take it over, at no charge.

“I was so grateful, but I really felt that I needed to be independent,” she says. “Plus, they had two dogs and I have a cat.”

A trust was established in the woman’s name at a local bank. Donations didn’t pour in, but they kept coming in a trickle, in dollar amounts ranging from four bucks to $1,000, and two weeks ago the Good Samaritan had enough cash in the trust to move out of the shelter and into a rent-subsidized seniors’ complex.

“It is a bachelor suite,” she tells me. “And it is really starting to feel like home. I am just so thankful to the people that donated money on my behalf.

“I think it says a lot about human nature and, personally, I think a lot of people — had they found that money in the purse — would have done exactly what I did.”

National Post

• Email: joconnor@nationalpost.com | Twitter: oconnorwrites