This Homeless Man Gave Back A Diamond Ring, And What He Got In Return Left Everyone Stunned

We can only imagine the shock Harris must’ve felt as he looked through the money in his cup that day. Panhandling doesn’t usually yield those kinds of results, even if it was just an accident! So where did this happen? Well, the homeless guy was staying on the streets of Kansas City, Missouri, at the time.

Yes, Harris was a recognizable face to the locals, who’d often try to help him out with donations. Despite their generosity, though, it wasn’t enough to put a roof over his head. Instead, he frequently had to make do with a spot below a nearby bridge when the evenings drew in.

It was far from ideal. But Harris continued to show up in the same area once the sun rose, picking out a place on the pavement. With his trusty cup alongside him, he was relying on the kindness of strangers to get by. Mind you, everything changed when Darling crossed his path.

A Kansas City resident, Darling had reason to be cheerful as she strolled along the street one Friday in February 2013. Her life seemed to be heading in an exciting direction following her engagement to partner Bill Krejci. But that bliss quickly turned on its head after she made a huge mistake.

You see, when Darling spotted Harris on the sidewalk, she wanted to offer him some change. So, the local woman emptied the coins from her purse into his cup and went on her way. Unfortunately for Krejci’s partner, though, her diamond engagement band was sitting in there as well. And it ended up joining the rest of the discarded money.

Talk about a good deed gone wrong! But why wasn’t the ring on Darling’s finger? Well, as fate would have it, she almost always wore the band, yet on that Friday her skin was inflamed. As a result, she’d stored it in her wallet. How unlucky can you get?

Anyway, neither Darling nor Harris noticed the seismic mistake at first. In fact, the latter carried on with his routine as per normal, completely unaware of what was sitting in his cup. It wasn’t until the homeless man started to gather his things together at the end of the day that he realized what’d happened.

To explain more on that front, Harris spoke to NBC in February 2013. “When I finally decided to leave, I got on my bike and dumped the change into my hand,” he recalled. “And there was the ring.” That must’ve been so surreal – you don’t normally find diamond jewelry mixed in with loose coins!

Then again, Harris wasn’t jumping for joy at that point. Why? Well, he didn’t believe that the diamonds were genuine. And we can understand his doubts. After all, would someone be so generous that they’d willingly drop a valuable ring into a homeless man’s cup? It seems highly unlikely.

At the same time, though, Harris weighed up the other side of the argument as well. Speaking to KCTV, he said, “The ring was so big [that] I knew if it was real, it had to be expensive.” Keeping that in mind, the panhandler decided to visit a pawn shop to have it examined.

And Harris was hit with a jaw-dropping valuation. “[The ring] was really worth some money,” the Kansas City resident informed NBC. “Worth enough that [the appraiser] was ready to give me four grand right there on the spot.” Yep, you’re reading that correctly: $4,000. Wow!

Think of the things Harris could’ve done with that kind of money. But that brings us to the key question: did he cash in? Would you? The idea certainly crossed his mind, but that’s as far as it got. To shed some additional light on the decision, he opened up to KCTV.

“My grandfather was a reverend,” Harris revealed. “He raised [me] from the time I was six months old, and thank the good Lord. It’s a blessing but I do still have some character.” You can’t argue with that – not everyone would leave $4,000 on the table if they were in his situation.

While that was going on, though, Darling still had no idea that the band was missing. In fact, she only noticed it was gone around 24 hours later. Unsurprisingly, that discovery hit her hard. “It was horrible,” she recalled. “It was such a feeling of loss. It meant so much to me beyond just the financial value.”

Mind you, Darling didn’t just accept defeat at that stage. Once she realized what’d happened, she returned to Harris’ preferred area on the sidewalk in Kansas City that same day. He didn’t seem to be around, though. So she gave it another crack on the Sunday, leading to a big moment.

Yes, Darling and Harris were reunited on the street, and the former later recalled their conversation to KCTV. She explained, “I asked him, ‘I don’t know if you remember me, but I think I gave you something that’s very precious to me.’ And he says, ‘Was it a ring? Yeah, I have it, I kept it for you.’”

Just like that, with a minimum of fuss, Darling got her band back. And to say she was delighted would be a huge understatement! But this remarkable story didn’t end here. Far from it. You see, Harris’ life was about to change in a major way thanks to his principled actions.

It all started when Darling and Krejci looked to reward Harris for his good deed. So they created an appeal on the website giveforward.com. She informed Today, “We set a goal for $1,000. We set it up because a lot of people who had been touched by the story expressed interest in helping Billy Ray.”

After that, the contributions started to pour in at a stunning pace. And as the total kept ticking over, the comments on the website from those who’d parted with their money were equally eye-catching. Darling wasn’t exaggerating when she said folks were “touched” by Harris’ actions.

For instance, a British couple wrote, “In life what goes around comes around. Billy – your sweet actions, despite being in dire straits yourself, prove that there is humility in the world. You are one shining example. Lots of love from across the pond.” They added $20 to the total. And the kind-hearted messages certainly didn’t end there.

Another patron revealed that they could relate to losing something priceless. “Several years ago, my mother’s ring was stolen from my house,” they explained. “To this day, I recall the empty feeling in the pit of my stomach. Hopefully, your honest example will encourage others to pay it forward. Kudos to you, Billy Ray!” That led to a $10 donation.

Anyway, by late February 2013 Darling and Krejci’s fundraiser had flown past the original goal. Incredibly, the total reached more than $100,000. Nope, that’s not a typo! Unbelievable, right? To think Harris could’ve walked away with $4,000 if he cashed in on the ring. He would’ve missed this outpouring of love and support.

From there, Krejci contacted Harris to discuss what was happening, opening the door to a surprising friendship. He informed giveforward.com, “We talked about a lot of things related to my family’s ring and the many donations. We talked about one day in the future [it] may be passed down to my daughter. We talked about how insanely positive all this has been.”

When all was said and done, the page brought in over $190,000 across a three-month period. That really is a life-changing sum of money. Harris went on to consult a legal representative, who placed the cash into a trust account. And once that was sorted, he got spending!

Yes, Harris purchased an automobile and a new place to call home. Those nights spent under the bridge were a thing of the past now. On top of that, the former panhandler was looking to renovate the property with his own hands, too. He didn’t plan to rest on his laurels. But the biggest shock was still to come.

Thanks to the television coverage of this story, Harris’ family discovered his whereabouts. You see, they’d lost contact with him for more than a decade. And their attempts to locate the guy were only made harder by rumblings that he’d passed away. That obviously wasn’t the case, though, and the group came back together in a highly emotional moment.

According to Harris, he was aiming to smooth things over with his relieved relatives after the reunion. They had a lot of catching up to do! Talking to Today in September 2013, the Kansas City resident said, “When I think of the past, I think, ‘Thank God that it’s over.’ I mean, I feel human now.”

Harris then beamed, “This is what they call the American Dream. I want to thank all the people that helped me out. I want them to see where all their efforts, blessings and kindness is going.” Speaking of which, he’s also got a cast-iron relationship with the two people who made this all possible: Darling and Krejci.

And from Darling’s perspective, the end result couldn’t have turned out much better. She told Today, “Overall, it just makes me feel good. A lot of people came together to change this person’s life, when he’s someone who really deserves that.”

But when Roberta Hoskie unknowingly dropped her $10,000 check, she couldn’t have felt that she deserved the good fortune that was about to come her way. She received a phone call saying someone had picked up her check – only she hadn’t even known that she’d lost it. And when she learned that the finder was homeless like Harris, she knew she had to thank him properly.

Hoskie’s own past might just have been the inspiration for the way she reacted to Elmer Alvarez’s act of kindness. Although she had since found success as a real estate broker, her early years in New Haven, Connecticut, had been difficult. She grew up with her single mother and three brothers and sisters, and the family were anything but wealthy.

Hoskie had experienced not having a roof over her head, and she had relied on welfare services to get her through a teenage pregnancy. But she wouldn’t remain in a state of need for long; at 20, she started working at Yale University, which afforded her the means to buy a home.

Four years on, Hoskie’s investment had quadrupled in value, and selling it gave her the funds she needed to start a business, Outreach Property Management. She has since used her success to give back to the community via affordable housing initiatives, economic development and business and real estate training courses.

In November 2017, a new chapter began in her pay-it-forwards good karma story. Hoskie took to Facebook Live after she received an unexpected phone call: someone had found a $10,000 check made out to her, and wanted to hand it over.

“I dropped my check and he called,” Hoskie said in her video. “I didn’t even know I dropped this check.” She later explained to daily newspaper the New Haven Register, “I thought I had it with my stuff in my car. I must have had it and it slipped.”

So, with her Facebook video rolling, Hoskie headed down the street to find the person who had her check. “I’m going to meet him, I don’t even know who he is,” she said while walking. The man she’d eventually find, Elmer Alvarez, had quite a story of his own to tell.

Alvarez stood on the sidewalk with his friend, who spoke to Hoskie on his behalf as he handed over the check. The friend gave Hoskie some background about Alvarez, saying, “He’s out here homeless.” It was a revelation that left Hoskie truly shocked.

The unnamed friend said that he had communicated on the phone because Alvarez didn’t speak English very well. But none of that affected Hoskie’s image of the man; instead, their exchange simply led Hoskie to proclaim, “There are good people out here,” and show off her intact check to the camera.

But the real estate guru had more than just a verbal “thank you” up her sleeve. She later gave Alvarez another one of her checks – but this time, the money was for him. He wept when he saw how generous Hoskie had been, telling the New Haven Register in November 2017 that he hoped to turn his life around and find a job.

The day Alvarez returned the check to Hoskie proved he was well on his way. He had a simple credo that guided his actions. “First of all, I believe in God,” the homeless man said. “My faith is what keeps me going through… I always believe that once you do right, right always comes back to you.”

And Hoskie would continue to repay Alvarez’s faith in karma. She invited him to take classes at her real estate institution – free of charge. And she reported a groundswell of support for him online, with more than 13,000 people watching her Facebook Live clip within a day of it being posted.

People from as far away as California and Texas reached out to Hoskie, hoping they could help Alvarez, too. To them and everyone else, she promised she’d continue to stay in touch with him and “teach him to fish” through the training at her real estate school.

As it turned out, Hoskie’s efforts didn’t end there, either. A few weeks after she had handed Alvarez a check and an invitation to attend her training courses, she presented him with another unexpected gift.

In front of TV cameras, Hoskie gave Alvarez six months’ free housing so he could really get back on his feet. The honest check-finder, who broke down in tears upon hearing the news, told reporters he was shocked – he had thought he was there for a simple meeting with the real estate agent.

Instead Hoskie explained, “You don’t have to worry about being in the cold this winter. We have housing for you.” That wasn’t all: she also gave Alvarez’s girlfriend the opportunity to attend real estate school, and promised the down-at-heel Good Samaritan English classes, advice on his future career and an interview with her business associate.

Alvarez could only express his shock after hearing about his second round of gifts. “I didn’t expect all this,” he told the New Haven Register. “Honestly, I gave it from the bottom of my heart and I expected nothing back in return.”

But Alvarez also said he had always been convinced there was goodness in the world. “I always say that there’s always angels around,” he told reporters. “I’m just trying to be successful, too, in life, so I’m just going to take advantage.”

As for Hoskie, she could only extol the goodness of others – of many people – just as she had in her original Facebook video. “I don’t care what you say,” she had said in her initial recording. “There are so many really good people in this world.”

And Hoskie said Alvarez had taught her another shareable lesson. Admitting it sounded like a truism, she nonetheless told the New Haven Register, “You cannot judge a book by its cover,” adding, “There needs to be more people like Elmer.”