Feel Good Story of the Day

[Soxy]

Who says nice boys don't exist?

 

Boy's moral compass set on honesty

 

By Ted Gregory

Tribune staff reporter

Published January 17, 2005

 

He is a model airplane and tank builder, Boy Scout and Yu-Gi-Oh! enthusiast.

 

Now, Andrew Gieseler is something else: a role model.

 

While walking to the door of a Super Target store in Warrenville on Saturday, Andrew, 12, found a plastic bag stuffed with $9,000 on a deserted stretch of sidewalk. A routine trip to buy sneakers to accommodate his growing feet suddenly became exciting and mysterious.

 

He picked up the bag and read the two white stickers on it, one specifying the amount; the other stating the bill denominations.

 

"We could see it was money and I said, `What do you think we should do?' " his mother, Mary Gieseler, said of their surprise. "He said, `We should bring it inside.' "

 

They brought it to the customer service desk. The employee there said the money didn't belong to Target and called the security guard, who thanked Andrew.

 

"It's not like I was going to keep it, and live the rest of my life with $9,000 knowing I took it from someone else," said Andrew, a wiry, precocious 6th grader from Naperville. "I didn't want something like that on my conscience."

 

After he, his little brother, Peter, and his mother each took turns holding the money, the family went about its business. His mother bought his sneakers while Andrew and Peter browsed in the toy department. They left and went to a 10 a.m. meeting at their church, St. Thomas the Apostle, in Naperville.

 

But word got out, thanks to Mary Gieseler's boyfriend, who contacted local media outlets. Soon, Andrew, who acknowledges that he isn't one of the most popular kids at Hill Middle School in Naperville, was a media celebrity.

 

By Sunday afternoon, he was yawning after being interviewed by three or four newspapers, two television stations and a radio station.

 

"It was kind of fun," he said, "for a little while."

 

It remains unclear exactly to whom the money belongs. A truck from United Armored had made a pickup minutes before the Gieselers parked their van at Target about 9:30 a.m. But the cash in the bag was not from the retailer's receipts, a Target spokeswoman said.

 

Andrew said he thought he saw a Glen Ellyn address on the bag. Efforts to reach United Armored officials Sunday were unsuccessful.

 

Target isn't concerned with that detail. It is more impressed with "his sense of right," corporate spokeswoman Paula Thornton-Greear said.

 

The retailer is going to call Andrew and "thank him in some appropriate manner," Thornton-Greear said.

 

"What a wonderful little boy," she said. "He did a fantastic thing. Suffice it to say that we will not let this good deed go unnoticed."

 

The timing was particularly interesting to Gieseler.

 

Earlier Saturday morning, they had closed a $61 bank account for Andrew and then tried to make a deposit at another bank, which was closed. While driving to Target, Gieseler and her sons discussed irresponsible parents who take their children's gift money and open credit cards using their children's name only to wrack up maximum debt on the cards.

 

"We're talking about this. We park and then, bang, this whole thing happens," Gieseler said. "It's just very weird and very nice. Andrew has done a good thing, and it's a good lesson to learn. I thought he made an excellent choice, and without prodding from me. That made me very proud."

 

Andrew's moral compass had been tested under similar circumstances about three years ago, when he found $10 in a public pool. He gave it to a manager, who told him that the money would be his if no one claimed it after several days.

 

That good deed paid off.

 

"I got $10 for being honest," Andrew said, adding that he and his mother do not expect a reward for their efforts.

 

"Does he deserve something?" Gieseler said. "He doesn't need anything. He did the right thing--and that's enough."