After all, sometimes the act of kindness isn’t the reward itself.
A 9-year-old boy in Louisiana was treated to a shopping spree after donating his only dollar to a man he believed to be homeless.
Kelvin Ellis Jr. spotted a disheveled-looking man standing outside a Baton Rouge coffee shop last month and made a generous donation without thinking.
The stranger was wearing pajamas and had his eyes closed.
“‘If you’re homeless, here’s a dollar,'” the young man recalled saying. According to CBS News.
But the man turns out not to be homeless, but Matt Busbis, the owner of a local sporting goods store.
Mr. Basbis, who has founded and sold outdoor companies worth hundreds of millions of dollars, found himself wearing clothes that didn’t suit him after being chased out of his apartment building that morning by the sound of a fire alarm. I was standing outside.
BuckFeather’s 42-year-old owner decided to grab a coffee while he waited, but stopped outside to say his morning prayers.
“Then I slowly started to open my eyes and there was a kid coming towards me who was about the same height as me,” Basbis said.
Bazbis notices that the boy’s fists are clenched and prepares for a confrontation, but Kelvin opens his hand and reveals a bill.
He had just earned that dollar a few days earlier with a good performance, he said.
Even though it was the only money left to his name, Kelvin wanted to give it away to someone he thought needed it more.
“I’ve always wanted to help homeless people and I finally had the opportunity to do so,” Kelvin said.
Basbis was so moved that he invited Kelvin out for a snack, contacted the boy’s father, and eventually invited the kind-hearted boy to go shopping at a sporting goods store.
Kelvin took 40 seconds to choose everything he wanted on BuckFeather, including a new bike.
Kelvin said he’s happy with the bike, but he didn’t want anything in return for the $1 he gave away.
“I’m glad I was able to help someone,” Kelvin said. “When you give something, you feel like you got a lot out of it.”
Ms Basbis said she was impressed by Mr Kelvin’s compassion and said the boy had regained his faith in humanity.
“If you donate, you’re actually going to get more out of it,” Basbis said. “I didn’t understand that when I was a kid. And if you can spread that around, everything changes.”
