At around 7:15 p.m. Monday evening, Emily Pearce pulled into the QFC parking lot at 15800 Redmond Way in downtown Redmond with one goal in mind.

This was the third grocery store she had visited and she was on a mission to find mint chips for her daughter’s upcoming holiday party. But as she and her 4-year-old son stepped out of the car, she found something else: a Bank of America envelope that had been ripped open.

Pearce could see there was money in it and said she was a little wary of the envelope at first. Initially, she toed it with her foot, before eventually picking it up. When she looked inside, she found several $100 bills.

“I realized it was a lot of money,” she said.

Pearce, a Snohomish resident who works in Bellevue, called the police to report what she had found and while she waited for them to arrive, she began counting how much money was in the envelope. She stopped at $1,000.

“How do you drop this amount of money?” she asked.

Once police arrived, Pearce’s son was excited to tell them what had happened and where they found the envelope. She said the officers seemed happily surprised by her reporting what she had found.

“Our officers love to respond to these types of calls,” said Becky Range, public information officer for the Redmond Police Department (RPD). “She could have easily taken this cash, but instead, did the right thing and immediately turned it in.”

For Pearce, there was no question in her mind that she would turn in the envelope.

“Keeping it did not cross my mind,” she said.

After completing the necessary paperwork, the officers thanked her and Pearce continued on her way and with her shopping. The cash was submitted into evidence.

Range said at about 7:45 p.m., a caller contacted RPD to report that he had lost some cash in the specific area of where Pearce had found the envelope. After verifying the envelope, its exact contents and location, the man was identified as the owner of the cash.

The man was then contacted and the money in full — nearly $6,000 in cash — was returned to him at the police department.

Pearce said RPD contacted her just as she was leaving QFC to let her know they had found the envelope’s owner and that it had been claimed.

The owner of the cash let officers know that he wanted to contact Pearce to thank her so she gave them her contact information.

Pearce said the owner emailed her to thank her and expressed that he would like to give her a reward or gift. But Pearce said she didn’t want him to feel obligated and that accepting anything from him would feel insincere for her.

Pearce added that she used the situation as a teaching moment with her son, discussing the importance of returning things to their rightful owners if you find something that doesn’t belong to you. She said she was glad she was able to show how she would want him to act if he found himself in a similar situation.

And while Pearce was able to return the money back to the person who needed it, the same could not be said about her.

She said, with a laugh, that she still hasn’t been able to find those mint chips for her daughter’s party.