Jewelry safe was disguised a little too well

The odds were surely against her. Carolyn Karlstrom poked through hundreds of boxes and unloaded thousands of cans before she heard that first jingle, a gentle rustling sound.

She shook it more rapidly. Again, she heard it.

That's when she unscrewed the bottom of the fake soup can and emptied its contents: a wedding ring, tennis bracelet, diamond earrings and an antique necklace.

The two-month treasure hunt was over last week for Karlstrom and the dozens of other Clark County food-bank volunteers who were on the lookout for the jewelry box disguised as a tomato-soup can that a Vancouver, Wash., woman accidentally gave away in the May 11 Letter Carriers Food Drive.

On Monday afternoon, Theresa Hekel was reunited with her heirloom jewelry. She went to the Clark County Stop Hunger Warehouse, where organizers had kept the soup-can safe under lock and key since Karlstrom, a Clark County Community Adventist Services volunteer, discovered it last week.

"I started crying," Hekel said. "I couldn't believe it was actually found because I had given up all hope."

The treasure had been floating undiscovered in a box at the Community Adventist Services food bank. It ended up there after Hekel gave three bags of food to the drive.

When she was loading the bags, Hekel had accidentally included the disguised safe kept in the back of a cupboard.

She didn't realize what she had done until a week later, when she wanted to hide some extra cash and couldn't find her safe. "I tore everything out," she said. "I was crying hysterically."

Though she went public with her story on Portland TV stations and notified food-drive organizers, Hekel never heard anything until Monday.

For the past several weeks, volunteers at the Community Adventist Services bank have been periodically unloading boxes and stocking their shelves. Karlstrom, a volunteer who works two days a week, was told by her director to be on the lookout for the missing jewelry shortly after its disappearance. She shook each can she unloaded.

"Of course I understand the chances of it coming to us was teensy-tinsy, but I had to try," she said.

"We frankly had no clue if we would recognize the can if we saw it," she said.

Hekel has yet to meet Karlstrom, whom she calls her Samaritan. She wants to meet her and thank her.

For Karlstrom, though, the highlight of the experience already took place.

"I just could imagine her excitement," Karlstrom said of uncovering the missing safe. "So that added to mine."