Last week a donation was made to a Canadian animal shelter from an anonymous individual.

A person who preferred not to be identified gave a $25,000 (£16,453) lump sum to Ontario’s Humane Society of Durham Region. The man is said to have left a note, but nothing else, before leaving.

The Humane Society of Durham Region used their Facebook page to reveal the news, saying: “Today a wonderful young man came into our shelter to make a donation. He wanted no tax receipt and didn’t want to leave his name. He just handed us an envelope and left. Inside this envelope was a note that said “Life is a lot more valuable than anything money can buy! All I ask is that you help a stranger one day, with no expectation of gain.” In the envelope was a bank draft for $25,000.”

Ruby Richards, who works there as an animal health coordinator, said that the man wouldn’t accept anything in return for his gesture. He’s reported to have said: ”I don’t want anybody to know who I am, I don’t want anything for this, I just want to help.”

The shelter operates solely from donations offered by the public and is said to have struggled as of late, due to lack of funds. In this time, it’s been forced to postpone many surgeries because it simply couldn’t cope with the demand. This money is said to give a massive boost to them and for what they’ll be able to achieve as a result.

Ruby continued, speaking to 680 News: “We’ve had people donate to us in the past. They’ve wanted their tax receipts or they’ve wanted something up in the shelter or on our website. But for someone to just come out of the blue and make this kind of a very large donation with absolutely nothing to gain from it was totally amazing for us. We had never seen anything like it.”

In September 2010, the facility was devastated by a fire and has since managed to recover dramatically, but still requires extra efforts to sustain its operations.