Honesty is sometimes worth more than gold. This is the lesson that comes from Josh, a 17-year-old Australian teenager who found 3,500 dollars (about 3,000 euros) outside a petrol station and decided to return it without thinking twice. A simple but rare gesture that went around the web and sparked a real chain of solidarity.
The money belonged to Daniel McKellar, owner of the Coastal Demolitions company, who had just received the sum for a job. After a brief stop for a coffee, the envelope slipped from his pocket. When he realized he had lost everything, Daniel called the gas station and found that an unknown young man had already returned the money.
Research on social media
McKellar, incredulous and moved, asked to see the images from the security cameras and published the video on social media asking the community for help in finding that mysterious boy. In the post he wrote:
Can the internet work its magic and find the young man? We want to thank him with a $1,000 reward.
The video went around the web until it reached Leanne, Josh’s mother, who recognized her son while having lunch with his friends. The boy, in fact, had not said anything at home: he had simply done what he thought was right.
The meeting and the unexpected reward
When the two finally met, McKellar kept his promise by giving him a reward of 1,000 dollars (866 euros) and offering the young man a job in his company after school. But the story doesn’t end there: an online crowdfunding launched to reward him has raised over 10,000 dollars, which Josh will use to buy his first car. The young man explained his choice in simple words:
I couldn’t live knowing I took someone else’s money. It didn’t seem right to me.
On social media, Josh’s gesture was celebrated as a sign of hope with many writing in the comments that the boy had restored their faith in humanity. For his part, McKellar argued that it is rare to see such a young boy acting with such integrity and attributing his action to the education he received. In an era where honesty seems like an endangered value, Josh’s story proves that doing the right thing can still change the world – or at least, improve it by a small, big gesture.
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