Devontae Hudson honoured for helping lost 7-year-old 

On his regular bus ride to high school one morning, Devontae Hudson spotted something unusual: A little boy sitting alone on the bus.

He got a funny feeling. Could the boy be lost?

“I looked over to see if anyone else was there and the bus was basically empty,” Hudson, 16, recalled.

Turns out, the perceptive Birchmount Collegiate Institute student was right — and on Friday afternoon, Hudson was honoured at the younger boy’s school, West Hill Public School, for what he did next.

The Grade 2 student he’d spotted, Confidence Eluozor, missed his stop along their shared bus route in Scarborough when he didn’t follow his sisters off the bus to West Hill.

On top of that, Eluozor had no idea where he was going because he’d only been living in Canada for three days after moving from Nigeria with his family.

“With this little boy still travelling on the bus, Devontae asked him his name, and he said, ‘My name is ‘Confidence,’ and that he did not know what school he attended since he had just come to Canada a few days ago,” Colleen Harrison, West Hill’s principal, told CBC Toronto.

Hudson assumed Eluozor was probably a West Hill student and called the school to check, then brought the 7-year-old back to school himself.

“I was just over the moon,” said Harrison, who drove Hudson back to his own school after.

“Just the thoughtfulness, the kindness.”

Award, free bus pass recognize good deed

Harrison praised his “quick thinking,” and decided to do something to say thank you.

Members of Hudson’s family were on-hand for Friday’s assembly, where West Hill staff presented the teen with an award for his act of kindness — and a one-year bus pass.

Tobin Cooper, Hudson’s uncle, said he’s proud of his nephew — who is in Grade 11 in the elite athlete program at Birchmount — and expected nothing less.

“We have a fairly large family, and he’s always taking care of the younger kids and looking out for him and things like that,” Cooper said. “So I’m impressed, I’m happy, I’m thankful, but I’m not surprised.”

Hudson isn’t the type of person who likes the limelight, according to his uncle, but he did offer a few words to the assembly in West Hill’s gymnasium.

“If you see somebody in need, you should just help them,” Hudson told the crowd of teachers and students. “You should help them without thinking about it.”