Students in the second grade class of St. John Catholic School teacher Kirsten Fox are pictured in this contributed photo.

After a second grade class made an unexpected find on the playground, they ended up with a lesson on doing the right thing and a surprise gift in return.

The day after the University of Kansas men’s basketball team won the NCAA National Championship — which brought thousands of fans to celebrate in downtown Lawrence — second grade students from nearby St. John Catholic School were playing in South Park and found a wallet on the ground.

Kirsten Fox, the students’ teacher, said her students came up to her really excited, telling her about the find. Fox said that as a Catholic school they emphasize doing the right thing and being a virtuous person, and so she decided that they would work to return the wallet as a class.

The problem was that the name on the ID, which was from Nebraska, was a common name and she wasn’t able to find him. However, Fox said she found a card for a fraternity in the wallet and reached out to the fraternity via Instagram to see if she could track down the wallet’s owner. It turned out the owner was a member of the fraternity, and Fox was able to get his contact information.

“I got his address and we shipped it, and we built it into a lesson with the students,” Fox said.

That had been the end of the lesson in her mind, but when the wallet’s owner got it back — Fox said the wallet had credit cards, an Apple tile and photos in it — he wanted to do something in return. After getting in touch with Fox, the wallet’s owner ended up shipping the students four books for their classroom and a box of snacks, along with a letter expressing his appreciation.

“Thank you so much for making sure my wallet was returned to me!” he wrote in the letter to the students. “It’s not every day that kids have the chance to do something good, but when you all were given the opportunity, you did the right and good thing!”

A letter from the man who lost his wallet is pictured in this contributed photo.

In the end, Fox said her students got to see how the internet could be used in good ways to connect people and also the importance of doing the right thing even when you are small. Fox said the students were “shocked” when the package recently arrived in the mail, and they got to eat the snacks — Goldfish crackers, mini Oreos and Nutter Butter cookies — while she read the new books to them.

“They were so happy,” Fox said, of her students’ reaction when the package arrived. “It felt like Christmas.”

photo by: contributed

Students in the second-grade class of St. John’s teacher Kirsten Fox are pictured in this contributed photo.

photo by: contributed

Snacks and books that the owner of a lost wallet gifted to a second grade class that returned it to him are pictured in this contributed photo.