When busboy Johnny "Thumper" Duckworth found $3,000 in cash on the floor of the diner he works in, he didn't think twice before doing the right thing.
Though Duckworth has no permanent residence in Grand Junction, Colorado, and rides his bike to work in the winter, he immediately turned over the money to his boss.
"I dropped it in his hand and went back to work," Duckworth told Today.com. "I didn't think about the money. I was thinking about doing my job, getting it done."
According to KKCO-TV, the envelope contained an ATM slip which Duckworth's boss, Randy Emmons, took to the bank. The bank was able to trace the money to a regular customer of the diner, Darrell Cox.
Cox, 74, had taken out the money to buy Christmas presents, but didn't realize when it fell out of his pocket at the diner. When he found out Randy had returned it to the bank, he went to the diner to thank Duckworth with a $300 reward.
"It makes me feel a lot better about people, knowing there are a lot of honest people out here," Cox told CBS.
After the fact, Emmons set up a GoFundMe page with a goal of $3,000 to help out his honest employee. Emmons explained on the page that Duckworth had worked at his diner for nine years, working 25 hours a week.
"He would work more hours if they were available," he wrote.
Now, nearly a thousand donations have flooded the page from people who want to "tip" Thumper for his good deed. As of Thursday morning, more than $26,500 had been raised.
"I never thought in a million years ... we would generate this much attention for Johnny," Emmons wrote on the page. "Let's keep this going and we can get Johnny into permanent housing of his own."
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