A person is hoping to bring love and joy to after donating two wedding rings to a Salvation Army donation kettle at a Massachusetts supermarket.
The wedding band and engagement ring, estimated to be worth $1,500, were discovered Thursday night, along with a note, after being dropped in a red kettle at a Market Basket in Waltham, according to a news release.
“This ring is being given in love for a second time,” the unsigned note reads. “Like the first time, I hope that this ring will bring joy and make a difference.”
The note also quoted the Bible verse John 3:16.
A staffer, Lt. Nichole Fullop, found the rings while counting money collected from various donation kettles Thursday night, the Salvation Army said.
“We are honored and humbled that someone would care enough to give something this precious to The Salvation Army to help others,” Fullop said in a statement. “Donors dropping valuable jewelry and coins with notes into kettles has been happening for years and is often a reminder of how the kettle is a sign of hope.”
The Schulers, of Wellesley, Massachusetts, are hanging up their bells after more than 30 years of spreading holiday cheer. A representative for the Salvation Army says that “John and Dwin are simply a force of nature.”
Dropping wedding rings in Salvation Army kettles has become something of a tradition over the last decade in Massachusetts.
An anonymous widow donated her wedding and engagement rings at a Salvation Army kettle in downtown Boston in 2014. That sparked copycats that holiday season, raising over $30,000, said officials at the time.
The original North Station donor was later reunited with her rings after a second donor pledged $21,000 to the Salvation Army for the rings and returned the donation.
And such donations continued — in 2015, two rings worth about $3,500 were donated at a kettle outside a Market Basket in Billerica. Other engagement rings were dropped in kettles in Boston and Framingham, while other valuables were left in kettles around the region.