Once upon a time, a father who had grown apart from his child decided to make his last child support payment in a rude way. Instead of giving his ex-wife the $800 he owed her in cash or a check, he dumped a bunch of pennies on the front lawn of her Virginia home.
It took him a total of 80,000 pennies to empty them into the yard using a rented trailer. His daughter, Avery Sanford, who is 18 years old, decided to change what was clearly a bad experience into something that will be good.
Seventeen-year-old Sanford was in class at Deep Run High School when her father came in with the strange child support payment. Her mother was there when her dad dumped the pennies, but she wasn’t.
She told WTVR, “He pulled up in front of the house and turned the trailer on so it dumped out all the pennies on the grass and my mom came out and was like, ‘What are you dumping in my yard?'” He said, “She didn’t know who it was until he shouted, ‘It’s your final child support payment.'”
Sanford was greatly affected by her father’s mean stunt. “It’s not just my mom he’s trying to embarrass, it’s also me and my sister and it’s upsetting that he didn’t consider that before he did that,” she added. After the hard work of finding the pennies, Sanford and her mom decided to make the worst thing into a good thing.
They decided that the best thing to do was to donate the last child support payment and send it in this way. Giving the $800 to Safe Harbor, a center that “helps people who are experiencing or have experienced domestic violence, sexual violence, or human trafficking” feels good.
The head of Safe Harbor, Cathy Easter, felt that giving the money away was the best thing that could have been done. “They were able to turn such a bad experience and what her daughter saw into a good one,” she told The Washington Post.
They found a way to make things better without being upset about it. Since the news came out, a lot of people have donated to the center. So far, they’ve gotten almost $5,000. A lot of people have said that the family and their story made them decide to give the money.
“I feel like this situation really turns into a positive when that money is given to moms and kids who need it.” He said, “You can learn from it.” The event and her dad’s actions also made her feel better about her choice to stay away from him, whom she hadn’t talked to in a long time.
If someone wants to treat her mom badly, she doesn’t want to be with that person. You’re doing terrible things to your kids when you act like that. It doesn’t matter how old your parents are; what they do will always have an effect on you, Sanford said.
The event was reported to Henrico Police by Sanford’s mom, who has not been named. Someone who hasn’t been named, Sanford’s father, was asked why he threw away the pennies. He said it was because 18 years of anger had built up and gotten the best of him.
He told WTVR that he didn’t want to make things worse between himself and his daughter. But Sanford has made it very clear that she doesn’t want to be with him anymore.
