An unlikely friendship has formed between a nine-year-old Louisiana boy and a multimillionaire businessman after the child confused him for a homeless man and offered him his only dollar.
When a fire alarm in his building awoke television personality and sporting goods brand owner Matt Busbice in April, he grabbed some random mismatched clothes and headed outside.
After placing an order at a coffee shop down the street, Busbice went onto the patio to quietly pray, security footage from the shop, shared with WBRZ, shows.
That was when Kelvin Ellis Jr. wandered by and saw Busbice standing in the corner with his eyes closed.
“I started to slowly open my eyes, and there’s a kid coming at me, about my height,” Busbice said to CBS News.
Ellis Jr. unfurled his clenched fist to unveil a $1 bill he had gotten from his father for earning good grades.
“And I go, ‘What?’” Busbice told host Steve Hartman.
“‘If you’re homeless, here’s a dollar,’” Ellis Jr. recalled telling Busbice.
“I always wanted to help a homeless person, and I finally had the opportunity,” the boy said.
However, Busbice was not a homeless man — just disheveled from being awoken by a loud alarm. He is actually the owner of outdoors brands BuckFeather, Tectonic USA, and AccuBow and the host of Viral Outdoors on Outdoor Channel.
Instead of being offended over being mistaken for a homeless person, the 42-year-old millionaire invited Ellis Jr. to have breakfast with him.
The footage from CC’s Coffee House then shows the young boy going next door to ask his father for permission. Upon receiving an affirmative answer, he returned and joined Busbice for a breakfast sandwich and coffee for his dad.
Busbice was so stunned by Ellis Jr.’s unbelievable generosity that he invited him to a free shopping spree at his sporting goods store in Baton Rouge, where he picked out clothes and a new bike.
“If you give, you’re actually going to get more out of that,” Busbice said. “I couldn’t grasp that as a kid. And if we can spread that around, everything changes.”
Although he was happy to receive the gifts, the nine-year-old said he was not searching for a reward when he tried to give away his dollar to someone in need.
“Joy, because I helped someone,” Ellis Jr. said of how he felt. “Give something away, and you feel like you’ve got a lot of things from it.”