Cashier returns man's forgotten $68 in change after three months — and that feeds 30 homeless people

PALM HARBOR — Three months ago, on Valentine's Day, a Palm Harbor businessman was on a mission to buy his wife a gift. He stopped to buy gas at a Shell station and drove off without his change.

On Wednesday afternoon, the same man, his wife and their four children passed out more than $60 worth of McDonald's cheeseburgers, fries and drinks to 30 homeless people in downtown Clearwater.

The link between these two events is Gabi Ibrahim, the manager of the Shell station, and he has a simple explanation for what transpired:

"There is God watching everything.''

• • •

Feb. 14 was also Jonathan and Kate Wilson's fifth anniversary. He had given her breast augmentation surgery, from which she was recovering.

That morning, Jonathan went to a gift shop to buy her a Lladro porcelain clock. But first he needed to gas up.

Wilson prepaid with a $100 bill, filled up his Cadillac STS with 17 gallons at pump six and "jumped in my car and drove off."

Wilson, 37, who owns a sports publishing company, said the money never crossed his mind again.

"Isn't that crazy?'' he said.

• • •

On Wednesday morning, Wilson and his family stopped at the same Shell station.

Ibrahim ran out of the store with $68.04 attached to a receipt.

"He's going over the receipt with me, and I'm like ear-to-ear grinning," Wilson said. "Right down to the penny. He even gave me the 4 cents.

"I wanted to give the guy a hug. But I didn't want to scare him.''

• • •

In their SUV afterward, the Wilsons talked about the incident with their children and what to do with the once lost, never missed, newly found money.

"We should pay this forward," Kate Wilson, 33, suggested, referring to the 2000 Kevin Spacey movie, in which good deeds are not "paid back'' but "paid forward'' to someone else.

The Wilsons' oldest son, 10-year-old Tyler Rekosik, recently finished a school project and used $50 of his own money to feed the homeless.

"We fed 25 people that day with $50,'' Jonathan Wilson said. "This is $68. We could probably go feed 30 people."

• • •

Ibrahim, 25, has worked at the Shell station at U.S. 19 and Tampa Road for seven years. It's not unusual, he says, for people to leave valuables behind. Usually it's a credit card, left protruding from a pump or found on the ground.

Ibrahim stores them all in a safe inside the station.

"We still have here a wallet here that's been here two years," he said. There's no identification inside, "so I'm just waiting for that guy to come back."

Ibrahim, who came to America from Syria in 2002, said he never considered claiming Wilson's money as his own.

"If I would use it, I would keep thinking 'That is not my money,'" Ibrahim said. "Maybe that was a test from God. He wants to test me if I'm a good guy or a wrong guy. I don't want to fail this type of test."

• • •

It was 4 p.m. Wednesday in downtown Clearwater and Donald Finch hadn't eaten anything all day. The former maintenance man landed on the streets three months ago after he lost his job.

Now he goes to a soup kitchen three times a week and picks up staples such as peanut butter and crackers at a food pantry when he can.

"This will be dinner," he said, before digging into a cheeseburger provided by the Wilsons. "I think this is just great."

Then he politely asked for seconds.

• • •

Ibrahim felt even better about his gesture when he found out what the Wilsons did with the money.

"Oh, that's so nice of them,'' he said. "I'm actually happier than before."

And maybe the whole chain of events proves Jonathan Wilson's point that good deeds are "contagious.''

Just ask the manager of the Missouri Avenue McDonald's.

When she heard where the Wilsons' food was going, she threw in some apple pies.

Rita Farlow can be reached at farlow@sptimes.com or (727) 445-4157.