Avery Sanford tells WTVR Richmond; "I just turned 18. When I was in the middle of class, my dad came by. He had rented a trailer and pulled up in front of the house and turned the trailer on so it dumped out 80,000 pennies on the grass and my mom came out and was like, 'What are you dumping in my yard?' She didn't know who it was until he shouted, 'It's your final child support payment."
That's right, her father took his 800 a month payment and tried to make them as miserable as possible with it.
Avery and her mom shoveled and eventually got on their hand and knees to collect all 80,000 pennies and put them in plastic containers. Avery thought about one thing a lot while doing that. "It's not just my mom he's trying to embarrass, it's also me and my sister and it's very upsetting". Avery says she knew from the time she was very young that "my dad is a total jerk. He tried to humiliate my mom many times when I was young. One of the happiest days of my life is when my mom said she had had enough and we were leaving".
Avery asked her mom if they could afford to do something helpful with the money. So they giving every single penny to Safe Harbor, a domestic abuse center.
"Turning around and donating that money to moms and children in need, I feel like that really turns this situation into a positive,” Avery says. “I love that we took my dad's insult and turned it into a way of helping women and children escape jerks like him”.