Kaylie Cyr of Buffalo Wild Wings says it didn’t cross her mind to keep any of the cash.

When Glenn Morse realized he’d lost an envelope containing $1,700 in cash, he doubted he would get it back.

Morse had pulled the envelope out of his pocket March 11 to pay his bill after dining at Buffalo Wild Wings and inadvertently left it on the table. It wasn’t until the next morning that he realized it was missing. He headed to the South Portland restaurant to see if anyone had found it.

A week later, he’s still impressed someone turned in the envelope without a single dollar missing.

“Anyone passing by could have picked it up,” said Morse, who owns Morse Builders in Portland and had the envelope of cash on him for payroll and business expenses.

But it wasn’t just anyone who found it.

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Kaylie Cyr, 24, the waitress who had served Morse and his friend Ronnie Bates, found the envelope and turned it in to management.

Fast-forward six days, and Morse and Bates were back at Buffalo Wild Wings for their weekly wings and drinks. Their waitress from the week before was working again, and the two men called her over to their table. They asked her if it was she who had found the money. At first, she rebuffed their attempts to recognize her good deed, Bates said.

“She finally admitted she turned in the envelope. I told her I was really proud of her,” he said. “That says something nowadays about someone’s character that they would do something like that. That $1,700 probably would have paid a lot of bills for her.”

Karl Stear, the manager on duty the day after the money was left, said Morse is a regular at the restaurant.

“It clearly was something that he left behind,” Stear said.

Cyr said it never crossed her mind to take the money.

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She said she knew the money wasn’t some eye-popping tip because it was in an envelope with someone’s name on it. Her customers probably would have pointed out the cash as they left if it had been intended as a tip, she added.

“That would be a sweet tip,” Cyr said.

Morse gave her $100 to thank her for turning in the money. Cyr appeared taken aback and said she wasn’t expecting a reward, but she also told him it made her day, he said.

Cyr said the $100 “blew my mind,” and that it would come in handy when she and friends headed to the Old Port on Friday night.

“I was very impressed with her honesty,” Morse said. “Not a lot of people would find an envelope of cash and have the grace to turn it in.”

Bates, who coaches the semipro Southern Maine Raging Bulls football team, said he is so impressed by the waitress’ honesty that he plans to write to officials at the restaurant chain about his experience.

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“She knew it was the right thing to do and she just did it,” Bates said of Cyr. “Her parents should be very proud.”

Cyr graduated with a degree in biology from Husson University and said she has only a few more weeks to work at Buffalo Wild Wings. In April, she’ll head off to California to work on wildlife conservation projects with the American Conservation Experience.

Cyr said some of her friends questioned her choice to resist the temptation of a large wad of cash, but the Madawaska native said she wouldn’t have felt good about that.

Friends say, ” ‘What were you thinking?’ ” she said. “But I was just as happy with them coming in and giving me $100.”

 


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