moneyAfter reading so many stories of horror, hurt, and sadness day in and day out, it's stories like this one that restore our faith in humanity. From beginning to end, it's just a big, happy chain of events that will make you smile.

It all started back in April when 8-year-old Abbie Jacobson was walking into a Sam's Club with her father in Maine where she lives. She saw a small green silk purse on the ground and picked it up. Inside there was money -- and lots of it, $4,000 in all -- but there was no identification in it other than a bank card with the name "Ra Rim" on it.

Her mom, Jennifer Jacobson, told Shine that doing the right thing was never a question in Abbie's mind. So instead of heading straight to the toy aisle, she handed it over to police. "It never crossed her mind to keep it," she said. And thank goodness she didn't.

It turned out that Ra Rim is an elderly immigrant from Cambodia who, due to the country's corruption, is in the habit of carrying her money on her body. She had saved up that money to go visit family back home, and she'd gone shopping that day to prepare for the trip. She told the Daily News she would have had to cancel the trip if she hadn't gotten the money back. Fortunately, thanks to Abbie's honesty, the bank was able to match the card to Rim, and she got to go on the much-anticipated trip.

The story would have had a happy enough ending had it stopped there, but then it got even better. As word got out about Abbie's good deed, so did information about the girl and her family who have been struggling financially as her father recently had a heart attack and Abbie has severe asthma that requires extensive treatment. When a newspaper asked Abbie what she would have done with the money if it was hers to keep, she revealed that she's a huge Justin Bieber fan and would have used it to go to one of his concerts. 

That's when another good Samaritan came forward and gave Abbie an unexpected reward. John Everets, the chairman of the board and CEO of the Bank of Maine, read Abbie's story and was so inspired he offered her and her family a trip to see The Biebs in a sold-out concert this fall in Boston. Talk about good karma.

But it's more than just karma, it's about a child knowing and doing the right thing, and her parents who have raised her to do just that. Her mom told Shine, "We always taught our kids, 'whatever is in your heart, you do the right thing.' And it has paid off." It has indeed, and what a better world this would be if all children learned this lesson.

In what ways do you teach your kids to do the right thing even when it's really hard?

 

Image via jollyUK/Flickr