I wasn’t confident there was much we could do for Brian Bertrand, whose nephew, Al Lapensee, faxed Metro for help last week.
Wednesday before last, Bertrand, who is visiting from Vancouver, took the bus in from the airport, and hopped off somewhere between Billings Bridge and Hurdman.
After he got on the next bus, he realized he’d forgotten his camera bag. His cameras could have been replaced, but they contained a summer’s worth of irreplaceable pictures of Bertrand’s grandchildren and other family.
He’s hardly alone. Every year, we lose something like 30,000 items on OC Transpo. They end up in the office of Maureen Moloughney, executive director of Heartwood House.
Since 2001, the local charity group has run OC Transpo’s lost and found service. The program is staffed by volunteers, many of whom are in programs for the developmentally disabled, literacy or ESL.
And they work hard to process 200 lost items a day, including four to eight wallets, an average of eight cellphones, and countless umbrellas, hats and gloves.
Perhaps 35 per cent of these items are returned to their owners, although your odds are boosted by the Happy Returns program — which for $10 gets you a unique ID number and some wallet cards and identification stickers for your valuables, advising anyone who finds them to turn them in to Transpo. (Of course, this is more likely the sort of precaution you wish you had taken after your stuff has already gone missing.)
Twice a year, Heartwood House holds a sale of all the unclaimed items, offering up big bargains on electronics, jewellery, clothing and more.
The next is Oct. 31, from 12 to 2 p.m., at 153 Chapel St.
The proceeds, usually $3,000-$3,500, go towards Heartwood House’s operating costs.
“When you receive 30,000 items a year I think what it really speaks to is how many kind people there are in this city,” Moloughney told me. “When you realize that you lost your iPod that you just purchased for several hundred dollars, and someone’s just turned it in for you so you can get it back.”
Sadly, this altruism is not part of Brian Bertrand’s story. His cameras never turned up at OC Transpo’s lost and found, but he placed an online ad, and the person who found them got in touch.
The Mediocre Samaritan has emailed an offer to return the memory cards containing the treasured pictures, but intends to keep the cameras. Pure class.
