Medford, MA --A junk hauler says he finds a lot of valuable and rare items in the stuff he's hired to remove.
But his latest find is a life changer for the family that didn't know what they tossed away.
Leo Guarente is about to break big news. He runs a junk removal service, The Junk Depot in Saugus.
"We find antiques, we found confederate money, WWII helmets," he said. But he couldn't believe what he recently found inside a 1970s Hope chest from a Medford home.
"All of a sudden there was this envelope and I looked in it and said thousand dollars bonds on it,” said Guarente. "It was, one thousand one thousand one thousand."
The chest was headed for the dump, but with $114,000 dollars--by today's rates--of bonds.
So Guarente decided to surprise the owner, Marie Veloso, who had no idea what was inside her late mother's chest that she had wanted trashed.
Marie and her brother Joe were speechless.
"Thank you very much," Veloso said.
For the family that recently lost their mother to cancer, this is about more than money.
"This is a gift of heaven from Ma,” Veloso said.
The experience was a gift for Guarente as well. "It warms my heart to know that I helped someone."
Guarente's good deed was also caught on camera, not just by news crews.
He is trying to get a show on A&E and happened to be filming the pilot when he found the bonds.
