As balloons fell and the crowd roared, Treasurer Cowell enjoyed one of the most fun parts of her job: giving back to the public. On February 17, she appeared live on ABC’s Good Morning Americato present more than $374,000 in unclaimed property to representatives from North Carolina schools, colleges and universities.
In the small town of Arapahoe, N.C., the Treasurer was greeted by cheering students in the gymnasium at Arapahoe Charter School, where she presented three large checks on Good Morning America’s “Show Me the Money” segment. These amounts included more than $229,000 to the N.C. Department of Public Instruction, more than $127,000 to the University of North Carolina System and nearly $18,000 to the N.C. Community College System.
Arapahoe Charter School received the single largest amount of any individual school at $47,720.
The segment was part of a series on returning unclaimed property through state treasurers’ offices across the country. Elisabeth Leamy, host of the “Show Me the Money” segment, had a goal of returning over $1 million to its rightful owners. She found several states with large amounts of unclaimed funds, North Carolina being one of them. The last check presented, $229,363 to the N.C. Department of Public Instruction, helped to push past the goal of $1 million.
In case you missed it, you can watch the coverage of the event here.