Residents Find Cash in a Flash during State Treasurer Event

It never hurts to have a little extra cash in your pockets. 

Darien residents got the chance to find out if they had any unclaimed money Thursday when Illinois Treasurer Dan Rutherford brought his Cash Dash tour to .

During the first hour of the visit, 50 percent of the searches returned money for people, said Barbara Chalko, who works in the treasurer’s office.

Thanks in part to an aggressive awareness campaign, Rutherford said that the Cash Dash program has matched people with $12 million more in unclaimed funds during the first nine months of 2011 than in all of 2010.

“People are hurting right now. The economy’s not good. Unemployment is high and this is kind of an easy, feel-good type of thing,” Rutherford said.

The unclaimed funds come from a variety of sources — stocks, money in abandoned savings accounts, unpaid wages or even the contents of old safety deposit boxes.

Since there’s only a finite amount of space, the state only saves physical property for a certain amount of time before selling it. But even if box contents are sold, the state will return the exact value of the items to the rightful owners if they one day come to collect it.

“If there’s cash sitting there, putting it back in the hands of people when it’s rightfully theirs puts it back in the economy, (and) helps them where they have some extra cash,” Rutherford said.

And occasionally “some” cash ends up being a pretty big haul.

Rutherford said that on Thursday morning he called 10 people, all of whom had more than $10,000 coming their way. He saved the biggest total for last.

“I told (the woman) that we had a verified claim of $127,000 in her name,” he said. “There was a long pause, and she said, ‘Who is this again?’”

A number of Darien residents succeeded in reuniting with their lost money, including Tami Hollendonner, who came because she saw her grandmother’s name in a treasurer announcement in the paper.

Sure enough, Hollendonner was able to confirm that her grandmother had an unclaimed insurance policy.

“It’s awesome!” she said.

Darien accountant Barbara Vondra appreciated the opportunity to meet in person with people from the treasurer’s office who could help her with a client’s complicated case.

After learning about the program from a client a few years ago, she decided to help her clients find unclaimed funds as an additional service.

“Taxes and stuff get a little stuffy sometimes, so this is a fun thing to do,” Vondra said.

If you weren't able to make it to the Darien Cash Dash, you can check for unclaimed funds or property on the Illinois State Treasurer website.