SIESTA KEY, Fla. — When owners at the Siesta Key Oyster Bar saw the destruction Hurricane Dorian did to the Bahamas, they knew they wanted to help, so they started pulling dollars from their iconic walls to donate.
For years visitors have been leaving their mark at the bar by decorating dollar bills and then stapling them to the walls and ceiling.
For a month, staff has been working to carefully pull the dollars off the walls.
"Once we started pulling them we realized that there were layers upon layers upon layers of dollar bills," said Kristin Hale, Siesta Key Oyster Bar general manager.
Hale says they were shocked by how much money was there.
"We took it to the bank yesterday and they actually had to take it to a vault off site because they didn’t have the capacity to count that much," said Hale.
The total was nearly $14,000. Hale says people who left dollars say they are thrilled to be helping out in a bigger way.
"People were excited," Hale said. "People were like, 'Oh my gosh, if I’ve hung up a dollar bill in the last 3-5 years, it’s on it way to the Bahamas.' It's really cool."
This story was originally published by Wendi Lane on WFTS.
