Dad pays final child support with pennies, daughter donates it to domestic abuse victims
RICHMOND, Va. (WKRC/CNN NEWSOURCE) - A Virginia man went to extreme measures to show he was not happy about paying child support.
He dumped 80,000 pennies in front of his daughter's home as his final payment.
She took those pennies and turned his act of anger into a positive for families in need.
What looked like a landscaping trailer dropped a pile of paintings in front of a window mailbox last month. A Deep Run High School graduate says it's been hard trying to make sense of it.
If a penny is worth a thousand words, certainly 80,000 of the coins will help Avery Sanford tell her side of the story.
"I just turned 18," said Avery Sanford, the daughter who was given tens of thousands of pennies. "When I was in the middle of class, my dad came by. He had rented a trailer."
The high school senior will spend the summer at home before venturing to Virginia Tech for her freshman year.
"He pulled up in front of our house, like turned the trailer on so it dumped out all the pennies in the street in front of our house. And my mom walked outside while it was happening. She didn't recognize them at first. And she asked, what are you dumping on my lawn? And he said it's your final child support payment. And that's when she realized who it was," said Avery Sanford.
Never thinking she'd have to use a snow shovel in the summer to scoop up some domestic drama.
Once the pennies were picked up, Sanford and her mom decided to flip the script.
Her mom is donating her daughter's last child support payment, every penny to "Safe Harbor", a domestic abuse shelter.
"It's not just her that he'd be trying to embarrass. It's also me, it's also my sister. And it's upsetting that he doesn't really consider that before he did this," said Avery Sanford. "Turning around and donating that money to moms and children in need like I feel like, that just really turns the situation into a positive one. You can learn a lesson from it."
A lesson, Avery is teaching, she hasn't spoken to her father in years.
She says the penny incident proves she made the tough but right decision to stay clear and she has no interest in having a relationship with anyone who disrespects her mother.
"It is really hurtful and damaging to your kids when you do things like that. And it doesn't matter how old your kids. It doesn't matter if they're a young child or an adult," said Avery Sanford. "The actions of your parents will always have some effect on you."
Avery's mom did file a police report with Henrico County Police.
A reporter spoke to Avery's father over the phone. He told them that it was just 18 years of frustration, built up. His emotions got the best of him and the last thing he wanted to do was to put a further wedge between him and his daughter.
