This story from Baton Rouge starts when Matt Busbice woke up to the fire alarm outside his condo complex. Throwing on whatever clothes he had lying around, he ran outside only to find it had been a false alarm. His clothing was mismatched and he looked out of it. But he was up so he thought he would go get a coffee and start his day.
It was about that time that young Kelvin Ellis had entered an eyeglass shop next door with his father, but stepped out while the latter was getting his eyes examined.
Meanwhile, Busbice, who had placed his coffee order, went outside for a morning prayer, and stepped aside to the corner of the outdoor sitting area to have as much privacy as possible. That’s when Ellis spotted him.
“And I started to slowly open my eyes, and there’s a kid coming at me, about my height, grey sweats; holds his fist up,” Busbice said, adding that rather than flying into his chin, the fist was holding a dollar bill. “And I go, ‘What?'”
“‘If you’re homeless, here’s a dollar,'” 9-year-old Kelvin Ellis Jr. recalls telling Busbice. “…I always wanted to help a homeless person, and I finally had the opportunity.”
Not only is Busbice not homeless, but he’s developed several outdoor brands that have been sold in deals together worth upwards of 100 million dollars. Ellis on the other hand possessed only that dollar, which he received from his father for good grades. As a reward, Busbice took Ellis for a snack at the coffee house, then surprised him with a 40-second shopping spree in the sporting goods store BuckFeather, which he currently runs.
Among smaller items, Ellis grabbed a compound bow and a new bike, but said none of it is what he had planned to spend his money on.
“Joy, because I helped someone,” Ellis said. “Give something away, and you feel like you’ve got a lot of things from it.”