Best Policy Proves Profitable

When 13-year-old Jessica Velasquez found an envelope with $240 at a Hawthorne bank in October, she became determined to do the right thing.

She began an intensive monthlong effort, scanning phone books, calling directory assistance repeatedly and even going to an address in search of the person who had lost the cash.

After examining a pay stub inside the envelope, Jessica worried about the person’s well-being. He “probably needed the money,” Jessica recalled Thursday. “He didn’t earn much.”

But after Jessica’s detective efforts proved fruitless, she turned the money over to Hawthorne police.

Now the police have presented an envelope to her--this one with more than $1,000 in donations received after her story of honesty emerged in November.

In returning the money, she has been rewarded many times over, said Robert Enciso, principal of Yukon Middle School, where Jessica is in eighth grade. “She is one of those people you wish this would happen to. She really is an incredible young lady.”

Jessica was in a Wells Fargo bank with her mother on Oct. 2 when she discovered the money. On the front of the envelope was a person’s name as well as a paycheck stub with the name of a company inside.

She asked bank officials if the person was a customer and they declined to tell her.

She and her mother decided to hold on to the cash and find the owner on their own.

That’s when Jessica’s detective work began.

She was able to get a phone number and address for the name on the envelope. Frequent phone calls only netted an answering machine, so she talked a neighbor into driving her to the address in Lawndale.

When they arrived, Jessica found that the person with the name she was seeking had moved a year ago. “I didn’t give up there,” she said, and began calling directory assistance for the phone number of the company listed on the check stub. But to no avail.

With all leads exhausted, she turned the money over to police Nov. 6. Word spread of her honesty and donations began coming in.

Jessica is eligible to keep the $240 after a 90-day waiting period is over. But “people were angered she had to wait,” said Hawthrone Police Lt. James McInerny. “They felt she deserved a better Christmas.”

Hawthorne Police Chief Steve Port said the department decided to give Jessica the donations before Christmas.

“We thought well, gee, why shouldn’t she have a nice Christmas?”

Some of Jessica’s friends thought it was cool that she received more money for turning in the $240, she said. Others said she was stupid for not keeping the cash in the first place.

But her parents “told me to be honest and to be a good citizen,” she said.

Enciso said he has seen a change in the Yukon students’ attitudes since Jessica’s story was publicized.

A variety of missing items at the school have been returned since then, Enciso said.

“You always hear, ‘You need to do the right thing.’ Now they saw a concrete example,” he said.

“She showed us that character is very important,” said Shirley Duff, board president of Hawthorne School District, which recently honored Jessica with a plaque. “Jessica’s mother was a good role model. Now Jessica is.”

With her new wealth, Jessica plans on buying a Nintendo game and some clothes.

“Whatever is left, I’ll put in the bank,” she said. “But I’ll give it to a teller.”