Online charity donation campaign for homeless man who returned a diamond ring goes viral
An online campaign for a homeless man who returned a diamond engagement ring which fell into his collection cup has gone viral just nine days into its 90 day run, rewarding Billy Ray Harris with over $130,000.
Harris, of Kansas City, found the ring among loose change after its owner, Sarah Darling, accidentally dropped it when she was giving him some change.
When Darling went back the next morning, she found that Harris had been waiting to return the ring to her.
To show their appreciation, Darling and her husband, Bill Krejci, set up a Giveforward fundraiser with a goal of raising $1,000. However, just days in the couple noted more than 4,000 donations had come in from across the world as hundreds of people congratulated Harris for his honesty and kindness.
One family donated $100 with the message, "We hope it brings a change you like!", while Josh Silver donated $10, saying: "Great job Billy!!! You are an angel!”.
Krejci posted a blog post updating donors with Harris’s response to the news and his plans for the future. He wrote: "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 the ring may ... be passed down to my daughter. We talked about how insanely positive all this has been. We talked about what he's planning to do with the donations. The details would be better left for later but know that he has a very solid plan and a very solid way of making it happen"
Krejci added the Harris has found a basement apartment to stay in, where he'll be "safe and sound for a while."
At the time of writing over 5,300 donations had been made, totaling $133,120 with 81 days left.