Retired Couple Accidentally Donates Soup Can Full Of Cash To Food Bank

A retired couple from Massachusetts meant to donate some canned foods to the less fortunate, but they wound up donating a lot more than they intended when they accidentally donated a soup can containing their savings to the local food bank.

According to Boston 25 News, Amanda Mattuchio from Middleton, Massachusetts, says her parents live on a fixed income, but they had managed to put aside $2,500, which they kept in a secret bank disguised to look like a can of Campbell's tomato soup. Mattuchio says the fake soup can opened on the bottom, and her parents had tucked away about $2,500 in $100 and $50 bills over the years, and they kept the fake can full of money in the kitchen with their real soup cans, for safekeeping.

Then one day, according to Mattuchio, a neighbor asked if they had any canned goods to donate to the food bank. Mattuchio says her parents packed up the cans and sent them to the food drive, completely forgetting that one of them was actually full of money.

Mattuchio says her parents didn't realize what had happened for several weeks. Then they had some money to put in the can, but when they went to hide it, they realized the can was gone.

Mattuchio described the experience as "devastating." The Middleton Food Pantry looked through all the cans they had, but the Mattuchios' missing can was not among them. Director Frank Leary says the food bank gets hundreds of cans of soup a week.

The can could be anywhere now. Someone may have found it, or it could just be sitting on a shelf somewhere. Mattuchio says she hopes if someone finds it, they will return it, but her father said that if it's not returned, it must have gone to someone who needed it more. To help fight hunger this winter, check out this list of 60 things you can do to fight hunger in America.