Memorial box thought to be filled with ashes found at Summerside thrift store

Workers at the Salvation Army Thrift Store in Summerside are looking for the rightful owner of a memorial box they believe could contain ashes, after they discovered it bundled with other donations left on their front step.

The store's managerknew the box wasn't supposed to end up in a donation pile.

"We sort of looked at it with stunned silence for a moment," saidAnnaMacDonald, manager of The Salvation Army Thrift Store in Summerside.

"I can't imagine losing that of my own ... I just feel like this person would be bereft if this hadn't been found or if they found out it had been lost and nobody cared enough to look back on it."

The boxhas an inscription that reads "Forever Loved, Always Missed, AWonderful Father."

It was bundled up with other items that had been foundplaced on the steps of the store lastFriday.

"It's certainly one of those things we never expected," MacDonald said.

"We get a lot of interesting things dropped off and we try and find the owners if they're not meant to be soldbut this one did catch us off guard.We were all kind of going 'OKwhat do we do with this now?'"

MacDonalddescribesit as a small memorial boxthat allows ashes to be shared among several family members.

Theyknew it would be important to someone so they posted a note online looking for theowners which got a lot of attention.

As of Monday afternoon, the posting had reached over 20,000people.

MacDonaldsays it's been great to see all the attention on social media and thatso many people care about the lost ashes.

It has even generated a possible lead. Someone has reached out to the store saying they are a relative of apossible owner.

"I got a phone call from someone saying that their cousin had to quickly move out of provinceand that their place was emptied without them being there and that [the box]was possibly theirs," said MacDonald.

She hasn't been able to reach that person yet butsays the box will be well taken care of until then.

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With Files from Laura Meader