BENNY BUCKS: MYSTERY DONOR HIDES $100 BILLS

It happened two summers ago, as Joe Robinson was marking down the prices on the pots he was selling at a fine arts festival in Oregon.

“I pick pots up by the rim, flip them upside down, see if the price looks right, maybe cross it out, put something else,” Robinson told The Washington Post on Friday.

Regular, everyday stuff, you know? On that day in 2014, though, he picked up a pot that had an imprint of a fern on it.

He flipped it over.

And as he did, out dropped a $100 bill, upon which a name was written: “Benny.”

“It was a brand-new, crisp $100 bill that had obviously never been in circulation,” Robinson said. “So that mark was pretty obvious on it.”

Robinson figured it was some kind of mistake. Maybe someone dropped it by accident when they were making a purchase earlier in the day.

Because you don’t just find a hundred bucks, right?

But remember that name on the bill? It indicates the money came from a person known simply as Benny — a mysterious philanthropist who has anonymously hidden hundreds of $100 bills over the past few years.

And the people Robinson spoke with after finding the cash knew all about it.

“Everyone had some kind of a story,” Robinson said. “And so I guess it’s his thing to do crisp, brand-new bills.”

“Benny” hides those $100 bills all over the place in Salem, Ore., and the surrounding area, reports have indicated. They have been discovered in the pockets of clothing, in diapers, in baby wipes and in candy, Capi Lynn, a columnist for the Statesman Journal, said in an email.

There was the girl who found a Benjamin in a pink bank purchased by her mother.

“I shook it, and it popped out of the hole,” the girl said. “My mom thought it was fake, but it was real.”

And the woman who found one with a package of cereal, right when she truly needed it.

In another instance, Benny’s gift was discovered by an 8-year-old boy who found the cash in a store’s toy bin. The newspaper reported that the boy and a friend who was with him would use the cash to buy toys.

But not for themselves. The plan was to donate the haul to a children’s group. What’s more: Their parents were expected to match Benny’s gift, according to the Statesman Journal.

This is a thing that happens a lot, said Lynn.

Benny, she wrote, has “launched a pay-it-forward spirit in the community.” By her estimation, more than half of those who find his $100 bills end up “paying it forward” — either to a charity of their choice, a cause dear to their heart or just to a person or family needing it.

To read the complete article, see:
(www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2016/07/16/benny-the-mystery-philanthropist-hides-100-bills-so-far-hes-given-away-more-than-55000/)

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