Good Samaritans still exist on L.I.

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If you discovered a diamond ring on the floor at your local Stop & Shop, would you turn it in to Lost and Found? That’s exactly what West Hempstead Stop & Shop employee Janet Stroom, of Uniondale, did on March 18.

Stroom, the manager of the store’s Starbucks counter, said she had just gone on break and was walking into the bakery to get a pastry when she saw a ring on the floor. Because the tile was brown, she recalled, she noticed it immediately.

“Well, first I was modeling the ring for a little bit,” she said. But then she took it to her manager.

Earlier that day, Rena Capri, a Franklin Square resident and the owner of the ring, had been grocery shopping with her husband, Michael Anthony. “It was just a typical day,” Capri said — until she came home and noticed that her engagement ring was missing.

They began retracing their steps. “I knew I’d been wearing it that morning,” Capri said. After returning to the store and having no luck, she recounted, she was shocked. “I didn’t think I would find it again,” she said. “I figured somebody probably picked it up and took it with them.”

Capri said she was hopeful that someone would return the ring, because that’s what she would do, but “it’s a sparkly diamond. Anybody could have hawked it and got money for it.”

Not even three hours after she lost it, however, Capri got a call informing her that the ring had been found and returned by Stroom.

“She’s a fabulous employee,” store Manager Dean Ghosio said of Stroom, who has worked at the Stop & Shop for eight years, and whom many customers know by name. “When she found the ring, she didn’t think twice about turning it in,” Ghosio added.

Capri wanted to give her a reward, but Stroom said, “I didn’t want to accept that,” adding, “Anything you find, you have to return.”

County Executive Ed Mangano honored Stroom at a ceremony in the Theodore Roosevelt Executive and Legislative Building on March 27. Tears were flowing down Capri’s face as she hugged Stroom and thanked her for returning the ring.