Edited to add: We have reached our target and no longer accepting donations - Grazie Mille

Yesterday, our 8-year old daughter Amélie wanted to buy a hand crocheted item for herself from the local artisan market. She took her blue sequin purse full of money that she’d saved from doing chores and asked me to look after it. I put it into my handbag, unaware of just how much money was in it, and off we went to the local artisan market.

When Amélie found the item she wanted to purchase, she went to pay for it with her own money. It was at that point, we discovered that her purse was missing from my handbag. It was a panicked moment. We checked our pockets and emptied the entire contents of my handbag but her pretty blue sequin purse was gone.

We back-tracked and revisited all the places we’d been to asking if anyone had seen her blue sequin purse, but to no avail. It became painfully clear that her favourite purse containing a whopping €120 of her saved money had been stolen.

When reality hit, we felt sick. I held back tears as I explained to Amélie that I had been robbed by a ‘pick-pocket’. My heart broke for her and I was so angry at myself. Had I known there was so much money in her purse, I would have hidden it in my secret compartment. She’s not one to boast and I could not believe she’d saved so much. All the times she’d clean the bathroom, vacuum floors and tidy up the house without being asked. Then all the tour prep work where she was being paid by Ride International… it all added up.

I didn’t think to ask how much she had in her purse when she asked me to put it in my handbag. I failed her and I’m heartbroken

Our market outing came to an abrupt end after that. On our way home, both of our daughters commented on what a mean world we live in when someone has the capacity to steal what is obviously a child’s purse out from her mother’s handbag. I explained to them that not everyone is evil and that there are more good people in the world than bad people.

Then I had this idea; to start a gofundme for her with the objective to find 120 people who can each donate €1.

This is not about raising more money than what was stolen. This not about getting a handful of people to make big donations to reach the €120 goal. This is about restoring an 8-year old’s faith in humanity. It is about finding 120 individuals who each donates €1 in order to demonstrate that for every 1 bad person, there’s at least 120 good ones.

So please, can you be one of our 120 good humans and donate €1 ? When our €120 target is reached, we’ll stop the fundraiser.

Thank you and grazie mille ♥️

ps. I just found out that gofundme doesn’t accept donations less than €5, which is defeating the purpose of this project. I will be writing to them regarding this. In the meantime, could you please consider getting at least 4 others to participate with you and send me the names of the donors so I can let Amélie know (?)