8-year-old spots a discarded wallet – returns it and learns its real worth

Frankie Burns, an 8-year-old football player from Orange County, was travelling with his teammates to a playoffs game in the Bronx when he spotted a wallet sitting out of place right there in the grass.

Someone obviously left the wallet there unknowingly, and Frankie Burns knew just what he needed to do with it. Upon closer inspection, he found that the wallet contained 17 $ 100 bills, an amount incredibly huge for a fourth-grader. However, Frankie did not hesitate once on what he needed to do next. It might be a difficult test of character and honesty for most, but in Frankie’s young mind, the wallet simply had to return to its rightful owner.

“I gave it to my dad so we could find the ID of the person who owned it, so they could get the money back,” Frankie said in an interview with Times Herald-Record.

Even more impressive is Frankie Burns’ maturity. He didn’t keep the money because he was afraid he’d get scolded if his parents found out, but because he didn’t want to benefit from some other person’s hard work.

“I didn’t earn the money,” Frankie said. “The other guy did from working.”

If you think this is heartwarming enough, the backstory of the wallet’s rightful owner makes Frankie’s kind gesture even more worthy of appreciation.

“He said that he just got out of the hospital—he was in there for four or five days—that he was mugged the previous Saturday because he got hit in the back of the head with a baseball bat, so he had stitches from the back of his neck to the top of his head,” Frankie’s dad, Frank Burns, told CBS New York about his encounter with Patrick Carroll, the wallet’s real owner.

In between medical expenses and daily needs, Patrick also badly needed to pay rent, and has been getting by just by borrowing cash from family and friends.

Carroll says he is happy and thankful that he can now pay everyone back. One person he couldn’t forget to pay back, however, was Frankie Burns himself. As a reward for his kindness, Carroll gave Burns $ 100, which the former said he might use to buy a new pair of football shoes.

Isn’t Frankie a wonderful kid? Do you think you would have done the same if you were put in his situation? If you were Patrick, what would you tell Frankie and his father? Let us know in the comments section below!