{"id":22373,"date":"2026-04-21T11:53:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T15:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/?p=22373"},"modified":"2026-04-21T11:53:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T15:53:11","slug":"money-is-useless-without-character-chick-fil-a-employee-returns-nearly-10000-he-found-in-the-bathroom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2026\/04\/money-is-useless-without-character-chick-fil-a-employee-returns-nearly-10000-he-found-in-the-bathroom.html","title":{"rendered":"‘Money is useless without character.’ Chick-fil-A Employee Returns Nearly $10,000 He Found in the Bathroom"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Left: Jonathan Weiss \/ Shutterstock.com | Right: WITN-TV \/ YouTube<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Chick-Fil-A is often praised for its employee culture and the polite way its employees respond with \u201cmy pleasure\u201d to customer requests. Now, an employee at a Kinston, North Carolina location is doing the fast-food chain with Christian values proud after returning nearly $10,000 he found in the restaurant\u2019s bathroom. Employee Jaydon Cintron was on his break and went to the bathroom when he found two white envelopes loaded with cash. One envelope had $5,000 in it and was labeled \u201cFirst Citizens Bank\u201d while another envelope was labeled, \u201cTruist Bank,\u201d with $4,333 inside, bringing it to a whopping $9,833.<\/p>\n

Although Cintron could have easily pocketed the money for himself, his first reaction was concern. \u201cThey were on the floor next to the toilet. My first thought was just like, \u2018Okay, no, this isn\u2019t happening. Something is wrong,\u2019\u201d he told a local news affiliate<\/a>. He turned in the money to human resources, with the restaurant looking through security footage to find the money\u2019s owner to no avail. Eventually, the rightful owner returned to the restaurant in search of the money and was able to claim it back. When asked why he didn\u2019t keep the money, Cintron referred to his faith. \u201cThat\u2019s not what Jesus would\u2019ve done. That\u2019s not what God would\u2019ve wanted,\u201d he said. \u201cMoney is useless without character.\u201d<\/p>\n

The grateful owner offered Cintron a $500 reward, which he turned down several times before finally relenting. \u201cI was in the right place at the right time, but more than that, my faith teaches me to do what\u2019s right and to care for others,\u201d he told PEOPLE<\/em><\/a>. \u201cKnowing how devastating it would be to lose something like that, I just wanted to make sure it got back to its owner. I\u2019m grateful I could help and I\u2019m humbled by the response.\u201d His actions also impressed owner-operator John McPhaul. \u201cWe\u2019re grateful for Team Members like Jaydon who demonstrate integrity and a genuine care for others. Acts like this reflect the values our restaurants aim to uphold each day, and we\u2019re proud to see that lived out here at Chick-fil-A Kinston,\u201d he told People<\/em>. Speaking to the local news, he called Cintron\u2019s actions an example of \u201ctrue leadership.\u201d \u201cTrue leadership, you know, true integrity is doing the right thing when no one is watching,\u201d he said. \u201cJay did that in this case, and he should be commended for it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chick-Fil-A is often praised for its employee culture and the polite way its employees respond with \u201cmy pleasure\u201d to customer requests. Now, an employee at a Kinston, North Carolina location is doing the fast-food chain with Christian values proud after returning nearly $10,000 he found in the restaurant\u2019s bathroom. Employee Jaydon Cintron was on his…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":516,"featured_media":22385,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inspiring-messages"],"yoast_head":"\n'Money is useless without character.' Chick-fil-A Employee Returns Nearly $10,000 He Found in the Bathroom<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Chick-fil-A employee Jaydon Cintron returned $9,833 found in a bathroom, crediting his Christian faith and integrity.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2026\/04\/money-is-useless-without-character-chick-fil-a-employee-returns-nearly-10000-he-found-in-the-bathroom.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"'Money is useless without character.' Chick-fil-A Employee Returns Nearly $10,000 He Found in the Bathroom\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Chick-fil-A employee Jaydon Cintron returned $9,833 found in a bathroom, crediting his Christian faith and integrity.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2026\/04\/money-is-useless-without-character-chick-fil-a-employee-returns-nearly-10000-he-found-in-the-bathroom.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Inspiration Report\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-04-21T15:53:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/89\/2026\/04\/Chick-Fil-A_credit-Left-Jonathan-Weiss-Shutterstock-Right-WITN-TV-YouTube.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Cecilia Buchanan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"'Money is useless without character.' Chick-fil-A Employee Returns Nearly $10,000 He Found in the Bathroom","description":"Chick-fil-A employee Jaydon Cintron returned $9,833 found in a bathroom, crediting his Christian faith and integrity.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2026\/04\/money-is-useless-without-character-chick-fil-a-employee-returns-nearly-10000-he-found-in-the-bathroom.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"'Money is useless without character.' Chick-fil-A Employee Returns Nearly $10,000 He Found in the Bathroom","og_description":"Chick-fil-A employee Jaydon Cintron returned $9,833 found in a bathroom, crediting his Christian faith and integrity.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2026\/04\/money-is-useless-without-character-chick-fil-a-employee-returns-nearly-10000-he-found-in-the-bathroom.html","og_site_name":"Inspiration Report","article_published_time":"2026-04-21T15:53:11+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":900,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/89\/2026\/04\/Chick-Fil-A_credit-Left-Jonathan-Weiss-Shutterstock-Right-WITN-TV-YouTube.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Cecilia Buchanan","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2026\/04\/money-is-useless-without-character-chick-fil-a-employee-returns-nearly-10000-he-found-in-the-bathroom.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2026\/04\/money-is-useless-without-character-chick-fil-a-employee-returns-nearly-10000-he-found-in-the-bathroom.html","name":"'Money is useless without character.' Chick-fil-A Employee Returns Nearly $10,000 He Found in the Bathroom","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2026\/04\/money-is-useless-without-character-chick-fil-a-employee-returns-nearly-10000-he-found-in-the-bathroom.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2026\/04\/money-is-useless-without-character-chick-fil-a-employee-returns-nearly-10000-he-found-in-the-bathroom.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/89\/2026\/04\/Chick-Fil-A_credit-Left-Jonathan-Weiss-Shutterstock-Right-WITN-TV-YouTube.jpg","datePublished":"2026-04-21T15:53:11+00:00","dateModified":"2026-04-21T15:53:11+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/#\/schema\/person\/450625ec20bf3e8a84060b9321455f3d"},"description":"Chick-fil-A employee Jaydon Cintron returned $9,833 found in a bathroom, crediting his Christian faith and integrity.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2026\/04\/money-is-useless-without-character-chick-fil-a-employee-returns-nearly-10000-he-found-in-the-bathroom.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2026\/04\/money-is-useless-without-character-chick-fil-a-employee-returns-nearly-10000-he-found-in-the-bathroom.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2026\/04\/money-is-useless-without-character-chick-fil-a-employee-returns-nearly-10000-he-found-in-the-bathroom.html#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/89\/2026\/04\/Chick-Fil-A_credit-Left-Jonathan-Weiss-Shutterstock-Right-WITN-TV-YouTube.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/89\/2026\/04\/Chick-Fil-A_credit-Left-Jonathan-Weiss-Shutterstock-Right-WITN-TV-YouTube.jpg","width":1200,"height":900,"caption":"Left: Jonathan Weiss \/ Shutterstock.com | Right: WITN-TV \/ YouTube"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2026\/04\/money-is-useless-without-character-chick-fil-a-employee-returns-nearly-10000-he-found-in-the-bathroom.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"‘Money is useless without character.’ Chick-fil-A Employee Returns Nearly $10,000 He Found in the Bathroom"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/","name":"Inspiration Report","description":"Inspiration News, Life Advice and Emotional Wellness","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/#\/schema\/person\/450625ec20bf3e8a84060b9321455f3d","name":"Brandy Grenier","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e53\/e53f6ea4c6b15081d4df68e2d7d7750ex96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e53\/e53f6ea4c6b15081d4df68e2d7d7750ex96.jpg","caption":"Brandy Grenier"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/author\/bgrenier"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/516"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22373"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22391,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22373\/revisions\/22391"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}