MELBOURNE, Fla. — Generous people often donate items to thrift stores — things they don't use, or often, need anymore. But sometimes they give away something they didn't intend.

One store is in the business of reuniting keepsakes with their absent-minded owners.

Kathi McCormick is the first face customers see when they walk into the Brevard Humane Society Molly Mutt II Thrift Shop in downtown Melbourne.

She's been managing thrift stores for years, the first of which she ran out of a friend's garage to help raise funds for a domestic violence shelter.

Later, she headed up another string of humane society thrift stores. Then she and her husband moved to Melbourne to retire.

But McCormick got restless.

"I thought, 'I have to go back to work,' and was fortunate enough that Theresa at the humane society was looking for someone to run this store here in Melbourne, and I was fortunate enough to be here at just the right time," McCormick said.

McCormick is a busybody at the store, sorting donated items and running the register.

But something had bothered her for a long time. Many people were gracious enough to give, but some of those items were unintended.

Her goal now is to reunite people with things they didn't mean to donate.

"When you see the look on the face of that one person who lost that item, who was absolutely heartbroken because they knew it got donated by mistake, and assumed it was gone forever, they come back to the store and say, ‘Did you find this?’ and we're able to give it back to them, it brings tears to their eyes because a lost memento is rarely found again," she explained.

They've had a success story already, like with Lt. Colonel Van Newville, killed in action in Vietnam back in 1967.

A donation was found with his Purple Heart, Silver Star, military ID, personal photos and a certificate signed by Lyndon B. Johnson.

McCormick, through three weeks of online research, found his family living in Arizona.

"They were very thankful," McCormick said. "It was his grandson who we were able to get all this information back to, and it is now in the local museum in his hometown."

But there is still work to be done. A handwritten letter from 1981 is on display inside the store after being found with a donation.

It's written by a Kim to her Aunt Marilyn, expressing her love and that she is her favorite aunt.

"This is a little girl who took time out of her playtime, or family time, and took time to sit down and write this letter, and also drew little extras on it," McCormick said. "She put a lot of care into this letter. If I was Kim, I would want this back so desperately."

McCormick hopes someone knows this family, even after 42 years.

So, for now, she's running the shop for the humane society.

But McCormick will continue as the thrift store sleuth when more unintended donations come in.

"I'm hoping word will spread and some of the other thrift stores will jump on board this train," McCormick said.