--- description: A California woman recently made an unintentionally generous donation to Goodwill when she dropped off a shirt with $8,000 in the pocket. title: Woman Accidentally Donates $8,000 Inside a Shirt to Goodwill image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltac80b05dbbe135fc/6988baaccf40a83d75c467ef/shirt-money.jpg?branch=production&width=1080&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Newsfeed](/tag/time-section-newsfeed/) ## Newsfeed Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Woman Accidentally Donates Shirt With $8,000 in Pocket to Goodwill  by [Megan McCluskey](/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Staff Writer Feb 16, 2017 10:03 PM CUT  Man holding $20 bills in shirt pocket Man holding $20 bills in shirt pocketPeter Dazeley/Getty Images  by [Megan McCluskey](/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Staff Writer Feb 16, 2017 10:03 PM CUT A California woman recently made an accidental [generous donation](http://time.com/money/4653399/aclu-donation-are-they-tax-deductible/ "undefined") to [Goodwill](http://time.com/money/4142650/give-back-box-goodwill-free-shipping/ "undefined") when she dropped off a shirt with thousands of dollars in the pocket. After Placentia resident Linda Hoffman swung by her local Goodwill with a bag of [old clothes](http://time.com/money/4244526/oprahs-closet-clothing-charity-ebay-auction/ "undefined"), she was in for an unpleasant surprise about one of the shirts she had decided to give away — it had an envelope containing $8000 stashed in the pocket. Bob Hoffman had been storing six years’ worth of secret savings in a shirt with the intention of using the money to take his wife on a surprise vacation to Italy when she accidentally donated the secret fund, according to [ABC 7 News](http://abc7.com/society/$8000-cash-stash-accidentally-donated-at-placentia-goodwill/1755437/ "undefined"). When the couple finally realized the mistake two days later, they rushed back to Goodwill only to find that the shirt appeared to be gone. However, the next day, a Goodwill employee discovered the shirt — with the entire sum still in its pocket — in a pile of clothes. “I describe it as a miracle,” Linda said. “I would say that it was honest people and what touched our hearts the most is how honest they were.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4673770/woman-accidental-donation/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4673770/woman-accidental-donation/"},"headline":"Woman Accidentally Donates Shirt With $8,000 in Pocket to Goodwill","datePublished":"2017-02-16T22:03:18.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:41:12.515Z","description":"\"I describe it as a miracle\"","url":"https://time.com/4673770/woman-accidental-donation/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Bizarre","Weird News","Human interest"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltac80b05dbbe135fc/6988baaccf40a83d75c467ef/shirt-money.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Megan McCluskey","jobTitle":"Staff Writer","url":"https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltac80b05dbbe135fc/6988baaccf40a83d75c467ef/shirt-money.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"200182959-001","caption":"Man holding $20 bills in shirt pocket","creditText":"Peter Dazeley/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4673770/woman-accidental-donation/","name":"Woman Accidentally Donates Shirt With $8,000 in Pocket to Goodwill"}}]}] ```