$40,000 Found Stuffed in Thrift-Store Sofa [Video]

New York college student Reese Werkhoven was settling down last March with two roommates on the couch they'd just purchased for $20 at a resale store when he felt something under the used sofa's arm. He dug down and found an envelope stuffed with cash – enough $20 bills to total $700.

"The most money I'd ever found in a couch was, like, 50 cents," he told The Little Rebellion website. "Honestly, I'd be ecstatic just to find $5 in a couch."

Imagine this, digging though your sofa cushions and coming across a huge stash of cash! I have found about $2.87 in loose change in my couch cash grab and for me that was a good day. Imagine finding nearly $41,000 in cash! It happened to New York college student Reese Werkhoven. He was settling down last March with his two roommates on the couch she had recently purchased for $20 at a Salvation Army Thrift store and felt something under the sofa's arm. He dug down and found an envelope stuffed with cash, it was a wad of $20 bills that totaled $700. Not bad, eh? but it didn't end there.

Werkhoven, who is student at State University of New York at New Paltz, and his roommates Lara Russo and Cally Guasti kept digging and searching through the couch they came up with $41,000 in cold hard cash!

Of course, if it was you or me, we could only dream and imagine what we'd do with finding that kind of cash. For the students who found the loot, they dreamed about paying off student loans, traveling around the world, buying a new car and so on. But then the students did a double-take.

Russo found a woman's name on one of the envelopes. They discussed what to do and all agreed that we had to bring the money back to whoever it belonged to. They thought that there were a lot of gray areas we had to consider. like:

Was it counterfeit?
Drug money?
The secret stash of a dead person

The following , Werkhoven's mom said she'd found the woman's name in the phone book. When Werkhoven called the woman and said he'd just made the purchase at the Salvation Army, she responded, "Oh, I left a lot of money in that couch."

Shortly thereafter, the students drove to the woman's home in a rough neighborhood of the Hudson Valley, NY and return the money.

The elderly woman explained that her husband had a heart condition and had given her money to sock away until after he died. When he did, the floral worker continued to store cash in the couch, where she slept until a back operation sent her to rehab for several months. That's when her daughter and son-in-law had donated the couch and replaced it with a new bed.

The elderly lady rewarded the students with a $1,000 reward. It great to know there are honest people in this world.

Of course a $1000.00 is nice chunk of change, but I would not rush to you local thrift shop hoping for the same kind of luck. besides, moving around a couch is no fun. Winning  is MORE FUN! Keep it locked on Q98.5 for your chance to win a $1000.00 twice a day in May, or even $10,000.00. Get the details here.