“I’ve been wanting to go to the State Fair” for years, Donna Lambert said. This year she had thousands of reasons to attend after money intended for Help Ministries of Troutman was discovered in Department of State Treasurer (DST) safekeeping. State Treasurer Brad Briner handed Lambert a check for $12,829.10 today during a presentation at the fair.
“I had no earthly idea at all” the nonprofit was owed the money, said Lambert, who volunteered with the civic organization before becoming president nine years ago. “I thought it was a scam,” when she was contacted by staff in DST’s Unclaimed Property Division (UPD), but “we were really just honored, so incredibly thankful for the money.”
During a review of DST’s unclaimed property database, commonly called NCCash.gov, staff identified the nearly $13,000 from PayPal donations to Help Ministries of Troutman that were deemed undeliverable and then routed to DST to hold.
Due to the unexpected windfall, “We’ll be purchasing food throughout the year for our clients,” most of whom are elderly, Lambert said.
“Help Ministries of Troutman is a shining example of North Carolina’s rich tradition of caring, compassion and community service,” Treasurer Briner said. “This small group of volunteers has been doing good work for a quarter of a century, surviving only through the generosity of donors.”
“We are all volunteer, no paid positions at all,” Lambert said. The organization doesn’t even have a budget, thriving hand-to-mouth on cash donations or provisions from local efforts such as Boy Scouts’ food drives.
Currently the nonprofit serves 40-45 families at the food pantry, with a homeless population that fluctuates to as high as 100 at times. Teams of volunteers deliver meals to shut-ins three times a week through a lunch box program.
Volunteers in the nonprofit’s Neighbors Loving Neighbors program do free minor home repairs. A volunteer team cuts up fallen trees to provide supplemental heating fuel in the winter.
“It’s pretty amazing,” Lambert said of the work being done through the volunteer alliance. “It really is.”
Under state law, NCCash.gov is currently safeguarding nearly $1.4 billion in funds that are escheated, or turned over, to DST. The money is awaiting return to the rightful owners after being lost, misdirected or overlooked. It represents 24 million properties statewide, and more than 27.5 million owners are associated with those properties.
Unclaimed assets consist of bank accounts, wages, utility deposits, insurance policy proceeds, stocks, bonds and contents of safe deposit boxes that have been abandoned.
Unclaimed property can result from a person or entity forgetting that they are due money. People might change residence and forget to provide a new address. It also could result from a typing error in a house number or zip code in an address, a name change, or data loss from a business converting its computer system. As society becomes more mobile and steadily moves to electronic transactions, the risk of having unclaimed property has increased.