Struggling musician unknowingly gives $5 to a TikTok star and gets a huge career boost
You never know where an act of kindness will lead.

David Kamara had no idea just how far his kindness would take him.
Hopefully, we engage in acts of kindness for their own intrinsic rewards. However, it’s also pretty amazing when generosity gets reciprocated.
TikTok creator Zachery Dereniowski is best known for approaching random strangers, requesting a dollar, then giving the first person to offer one a large sum of money and helping make one of their dreams come true.
On February 17, Dereniowski stood on a street outside the University of Windsor in Ontario, Canada, holding a yellow, smiley-face balloon, asking folks if they’d buy it for a dollar.
Everyone turned him down until he was approached by a friendly man named David Kamara. Kamara handed Dereniowski a flyer, explaining that he was a musician. Whipping out an iPad to show off some of his work, Kamara’s energy was instantly infectious.
“I grew up in the hood, so when we were little we used to go to the Dollarama to get the dollar store mics…I never knew it would manifest into this,” he told Dereniowski.
It wasn’t until after he listened to the song that Dereniowski asked Kamara if he’d like to buy the balloon for a dollar. Without missing a beat, Kamara upped the offer to an e-transfer of $5, saying "a dollar is not going to do much.”
For helping him out, Dereniowski gave Kamara the “magic” balloon, telling him that it would help “manifest” his biggest wish once he let it go in the air.
Kamara knew exactly what he wanted to manifest—a Grammy.
@mdmotivator “I’ll be sending the money to my family in Africa” 🥺❤️ (L1NK 1N B10) #mystery #music #money #africa #spotify #viral #kindness ♬ original sound - Zachery Dereniowski
(Note: We don't recommend letting balloons go for environmental protection and safety reasons.)
Dereniowski didn’t come with any trophies up his sleeve, but he did give Kamara $2,000 on the spot to use towards his music career. Kamara, unsurprisingly, was absolutely elated.
"I can't believe you just did that bro. Nobody would do that for me!” he exclaimed, adding that he would be sending some of the 2,000 to his brothers and sisters in Africa.
“You just blessed me, so I can bless,” he told Dereniowski.
To Kamara’s surprise, the blessings would keep coming. Dereniowski informed Kamara that his millions of followers would now know where to stream Kamara's music. The good deed influencer even wrote an on-screen caption showing that Kamara's work was available on Spotify and Apple.
The clip, which received over 11 million views, gave Kamara an instant surge to his fan base. According to an interview with Insider, his Instagram following grew from 16,000 to over 63,900, and his TikTok (which was only recently created) went from only 40 followers to over 43,600. Holy moly.
Just as he dreamed of, Kamara’s music career has seen a major shift as well. His two most popular songs, “Replay” and "For you," now have been listened to on Spotify over 280,000 times collectively.
Kamara told Insider that he had no idea who Dereniowski really was, but thought he might need money to get home, which is why he offered $5. That good deed has been reciprocated beyond his wildest imagination. And true to his word, he continued to share his blessings with others. In addition to sending that money back to his family, he plans on giving it to some of Dereniowski’s fans who shared their personal situations in the video’s comments.
Kindness really can be the gift that keeps on giving.
- Patton Oswalt and his fans transformed a Twitter troll's life with a simple but powerful act of kindness. ›
- People share small acts of kindness that can be used every day, and some are brilliantly simple ›
- Jennifer Garner shows how a random act of kindness begins with a simple Ziploc bag ›
- Struggling bookstore owner receives flood of support - Upworthy ›






A woman is getting angry at her coworker.via
A man with tape over his mouth.via
A husband is angry with his wife. via 
a man sitting at a desk with his head on his arms Photo by
Can a warm cup of tea help you sleep better? If you believe it, then yes. Photo by 
Three women sit on a blanket in the park. 
Two women engaging in a pleasant conversation inside a coffee shop
Two men engaging in a peaceful disagreement.
Resurfaced video of French skier's groin incident has people giving the announcer a gold medal
"The boys took a beating on that one."
Downhill skiing is a sport rife with injuries, but not usually this kind.
A good commentator can make all the difference when watching sports, even when an event goes smoothly. But it's when something goes wrong that great announcers rise to the top. There's no better example of a great announcer in a surprise moment than when French skier Yannick Bertrand took a gate to the groin in a 2007 super-G race.
Competitive skiers fly down runs at incredible speeds, often exceeding 60 mph. Hitting something hard at that speed would definitely hurt, but hitting something hard with a particularly sensitive part of your body would be excruciating. So when Bertrand slammed right into a gate family-jewels-first, his high-pitched scream was unsurprising. What was surprising was the perfect commentary that immediately followed.
This is a clip you really just have to see and hear to fully appreciate:
- YouTube youtu.be
It's unclear who the announcer is, even after multiple Google inquiries, which is unfortunate because that gentleman deserves a medal. The commentary gets better with each repeated viewing, with highlights like:
"The gate the groin for Yannick Bertrand, and you could hear it. And if you're a man, you could feel it."
"Oh, the Frenchman. Oh-ho, monsieurrrrrr."
"The boys took a beating on that one."
"That guy needs a hug."
"Those are the moments that change your life if you're a man, I tell you what."
"When you crash through a gate, when you do it at high rate of speed, it's gonna hurt and it's going to leave a mark in most cases. And in this particular case, not the area where you want to leave a mark."
Imagine watching a man take a hit to the privates at 60 mph and having to make impromptu commentary straddling the line between professionalism and acknowledging the universal reality of what just happened. There are certain things you can't say on network television that you might feel compelled to say. There's a visceral element to this scenario that could easily be taken too far in the commentary, and the inherent humor element could be seen as insensitive and offensive if not handled just right.
The announcer nailed it. 10/10. No notes.
The clip frequently resurfaces during the Winter Olympic Games, though the incident didn't happen during an Olympic event. Yannick Bertrand was competing at the FIS World Cup super-G race in Kvitfjell, Norway in 2007, when the unfortunate accident occurred. Bertrand had competed at the Turin Olympics the year before, however, coming in 24th in the downhill and super-G events.
As painful as the gate to the groin clearly as, Bertrand did not appear to suffer any damage that kept him from the sport. In fact, he continued competing in international downhill and super-G races until 2014.
According to a 2018 study, Alpine skiing is a notoriously dangerous sport with a reported injury rate of 36.7 per 100 World Cup athletes per season. Of course, it's the knees and not the coin purse that are the most common casualty of ski racing, which we saw clearly in U.S. skier Lindsey Vonn's harrowing experiences at the 2026 Olympics. Vonn was competing with a torn ACL and ended up being helicoptered off of the mountain after an ugly crash that did additional damage to her legs, requiring multiple surgeries (though what caused the crash was reportedly unrelated to her ACL tear). Still, she says she has no regrets.
As Bertrand's return to the slopes shows, the risk of injury doesn't stop those who live for the thrill of victory, even when the agony of defeat hits them right in the rocks.