DAUGHTER DONATED DAD’S 80,000 PENNIES OF CHILD SUPPORT
A Richmond-area teen’s estranged dad dumped 80,000 pennies as her mom’s “final” child support payment, and she donated them to a domestic-abuse shelter.
Avery Sanford, 18, a soon-to-be Virginia Tech freshman, said her father rented a landscaping trailer and dumped the coins outside the family’s home on May 21, 2021. The pile was worth $800.
ABC7 New York reported that Sanford and her mother, Raven Sickal, recalled the father telling Sickal: “It’s your final child support payment.”
Sanford said the stunt was never only about her mom.
“It’s not just her that he’d be trying to embarrass. It’s also me, it’s also my sister,” Sanford said. She added that an act like that is hurtful and damaging to children no matter their age.
What the footage and police showed
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that home-security footage showed a man in an SUV with a trailer dumping the coins on the lawn and sidewalk, then driving away. ABC7 said Sanford helped shovel the coins from the street.
The Inquirer also reported that the final payment deadline was May 21 and the amount due was $825, a bit more than the $800 in coins.
ABC7 said Sickal reported the incident to police. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that an officer responded to a domestic-related incident at the home in Glen Allen. Henrico police documented the incident and filed no charges, police spokesperson Lt. Matthew Pecka told the Inquirer.
Sanford, a Deep Run High School graduate by the time of the AJC’s coverage, said she had not spoken to her father in years. She said she had no interest in a relationship with someone who disrespected her mother.
The father gave his side to WTVR. He said his emotions got the best of him after 18 years of frustration, and that “the last thing he wanted to do was to put a further wedge between him and his daughter.”
From a pile of pennies to a shelter donation
Sanford and her mother decided the coins would do some good. They donated the $800 to Safe Harbor, a nearby shelter for survivors of domestic violence, sexual violence and human trafficking.
“Turning around and donating that money to moms and children in need — I feel like that just really turns the situation into a positive one,” Sanford told ABC7.
Safe Harbor officials confirmed the gift, the Inquirer reported. Executive director Cathy Easter said the family turned a negative experience into a positive one, the AJC reported.
Sickal said she “sobbed” when she heard about the donations that followed. “It made both of us very emotional,” she said in a statement. “This reach has been amazing and the thoughtfulness and kind gestures have been beyond anything we expected.”
Safe Harbor development director Mary Maupai said the nonprofit’s online donation page “just blew up,” bringing in more than $47,000 from local, national and international donors, including some as far away as England.
