Hallie Peterson left microbiology class early to head to her job, rushing through the pouring rain to get to her car.
But a small package in a puddle caught her eye.
A pile of damp checks and cash sat on the ground on the parking lot. Peterson, a 19-year-old Santa Fe College nursing sophomore, scooped up the $2,655 bundle Sept. 18 and immediately started looking for its owners.
Peterson, who works her way through college on her own, helped get the money back to its owners.
“It would be nice to have that much money,” she said, “because I could definitely use the money.”
She said she’s worked three jobs at once to pay her car insurance, bills and other expenses.
Her phone was on the fritz recently because she couldn’t afford the minutes.
When Peterson found the money — four checks totaling $2,255 and four $100 bills — she and her boyfriend researched the company listed on the checks and gave the bundle to police on Friday.
Peterson, who said she hopes to transfer to UF next year for nursing, left class 30 minutes early on Tuesday to drive to her job at Hollister in the Oaks Mall and saw the clump of papers next to her car.
“I was walking to my car, and usually when I see things on the ground, I just pick them up out of curiosity,” she said. “I picked it up, and then when I realized what it was, I looked around. I was just shocked.”
“At first I was like, ‘Is this a test?’ It was unreal. Four $100 bills. That’s just mind-blowing to find on the ground,” she said.
She quickly called her boyfriend, 20-year-old Tony Wyatt, to tell him what she’d found.
Wyatt, a UF civil engineering sophomore, was walking from his statics class in the New Engineering Building when he got her call.
“It was ridiculous,” Wyatt said. “I didn’t believe her at first.”
He said they didn’t know what to do right away because it isn’t often that someone misplaces more than $2,000.
“Our friends were telling us to pocket the money and throw away the checks,” he said, “but it just didn’t feel right.”
Peterson said it reminded her of when she lost almost $400 in a Target shopping cart when she was younger.
“I was devastated,” she said.
Peterson said money is a big deal to her because she completely supports herself.
“If I would have lost that much money, I think I would have died,” she said. “I would know how somebody else would feel if they lost the money, and I would not want anybody else to feel like that.”
Peterson said she contacted Santa Fe College the next day and said she couldn’t get an answer about what to do.
So Wyatt helped her research the tire company the checks were addressed to and discovered it was a transportation company, Wyatt said.
Peterson contacted the company before calling Santa Fe College again.
They told her a woman from the company had reported the missing money.
She gave the money to the Santa Fe College Police Department because police said it was safer for the woman to collect it from them.
Peterson said she’s relieved she doesn’t have the money anymore and hopes the owner gets it back.
Wyatt said he hopes the person gets in contact with Peterson to thank her.
“Who knows, maybe they’ll give her some free tires,” he said.
Hallie Peterson, 19, returned $2,655 in cash and checks she found in a parking lot. Peterson is working her way through college and said keeping the money didn’t feel right.
