An Ontario man is looking to pay it forward after his lost wallet with more than $1,000 in it was returned with all the money still inside.

On Thursday morning, Chris Feeney lost his wallet after filling up his truck at a local gas station.

“The first thought was ‘I’m a complete bonehead,” Chris Feeney told CTV Kitchener. “Right away I had this gut feeling I left it on the back [of the truck].”

After rushing back to the gas station and seeing security camera footage that showed him driving off with the wallet on his truck and travelling the path he took home several times, he finally accepted that his wallet was gone.

He called and cancelled all of his credit and debit cards, and headed to Service Ontario to deal with the lost IDs before getting a call from his wife, telling him that a man in a Grand River Transit uniform had come to the house with the wallet.

“She said somebody pulled up in front of the house, and said there’s a guy getting out in a Grand River Transit uniform,” Feeney recalled.

Feeney rushed home to meet the driver, who had come to return the wallet which he had found on the street as he drove his route.

“I was speechless,” Feeney said. “I chalked it up to a 30 per cent chance that I would ever see the wallet again.”

GRT says the driver asked to not be identified, but that he’s a shining example of the community support the organization strives for.

“It’s typical of what our employees do every day,” GRT Director of Transit Services Peter Zinck said. “They go above and beyond every day to build trust within the community and provide great service.”

Feeney says that once he found out the wallet was found, he and his wife decided they wanted to use the money to do something positive.

“It was gone as far as I was concerned, so when I found out we had the cash I thought we should do something good with it, because it felt like found money at that point.”

Feeney says the driver’s daughter is living with cystic fibrosis, with the family traveling to Toronto’s SickKids hospital multiple times a week.

He says he plans to work with a local radio personality, Mike Farwell, who can be “hired” for odd jobs, with all money going to support cystic fibrosis research, with the remainder of the money going toward other good causes.

“It’s all going to find a good home,” Feeney said.