BUFF BAY, Portland — He didn’t own a phone, but when Buff Bay High School ninth grader Rodane Green found one near the Port Antonio market he resisted the urge to keep it.

That act of honesty has earned him not just a brand new phone, with $1,000 credit, but his transportation to and from school is covered for the next three months. Additionally, a ceremony was held at his school on Monday dedicated to praising him for his good deed.

It all began on March 30 when Constable Michael Wright accidentally drove away from the school with his phone on top of his car.

“An incident happened in the police vehicle and I rest my phone on top of the police vehicle and forgot… While I was in Norwich I remembered the phone and stopped the vehicle and looked on top of the vehicle. When we look, no phone!” Constable Wright recounted during the ceremony at the school’s regular morning devotion.

The $70,000 phone, said the constable, who is also a pastor, was valuable because it contained information that is crucial to his job and ministry.

As a distraught Constable Wright sat at the Port Antonio Police Station mulling over the loss of his phone, he saw a young khaki-clad boy running towards him. The student had the cop’s phone in his hand.

Wright — a consummate storyteller — recounted his encounter with Green as the entire student body and staff members of Buff Bay High listened, hanging on to his every word. He was obviously relishing telling of the tale and his audience loved every minute of it.

“‘Sir! Sir! Si yuh phone here!’,” he said Green told him.

The young boy told the constable he knew the lawman was the owner of the phone as he had seen his photo on the locked screen and he had remembered him from the talk on conflict resolution he gave at his school.

“I said, ‘Thank you very much’. But I didn’t have anything on me to give him. I said, ‘Give me your number so that I can compensate you later’. The young man look on me and tell me seh, ‘Mi no have no phone’. That touch me,” recounted the policeman. “Mi say, ‘Lord have mercy’, ’cause nowadays you no have no phone and you find a phone, it simple mean say you just have a phone; no true?”

Wright and other members of the Community Safety and Security Branch (CSSB) of the JCF have now ensured that Green not only has a phone but a whole lot more.

“The young man decided to give me back my phone. Today is his day,” Wright said to loud cheers from Green’s peers and teachers.

“Him coulda tek mi old phone and mi buy back a new phone, but today mi a keep mi old phone and him get a new phone,” the cop added.

He has also committed to providing Green with school supplies from donations he gets annually.

“We are presenting him also with a school bag, $1,000 credit, and for the next three months [Digicel] and the Community, Safety and Security [Branch]are giving him $10,000 for transportation to and from school,” Wright announced.

“I say to you all, ‘Honesty is the best policy’. When you find anybody’s property you ensure that you establish the owner and try and give them back,” he urged the students as a teary-eyed Green looked on.

The young lad admitted that it had crossed his mind to keep the phone.

“When I found the phone, the first thing came to my mind is that I need a phone so I must not give it back. When I think about it I said if it was my phone I would not want anybody to take it away, so I just return it,” he explained.

“I recognise the police officer because I see him down at the school and on the phone. I felt kind of good when I was handing the phone back to him. When I told my parents about the phone they told me, ‘It is the right thing you did, I am proud of you’.”

He was “shocked”, he said, at the outpouring of support for his actions.

“I feel good and I say thanks to all the persons,” he said with a smile.

On behalf of its members, the president of the school’s Parent Teachers’ Association George Brown presented Green with a headset that he can use with his brand new phone and a “bag of goodies”. He had been moved to tears, he said, when he heard of the young boy’s good deed.

Green’s actions have also caught the attention of one of the school’s clubs that focuses on doing the right thing and works with the civic group National Integrity Action.

“Rodane, we are so proud of you. Your action illustrates our message and for this reason we are going to award you as an Integrity Ambassador and grant you honourable membership of the Integrity Club of the Buff Bay High School. I encourage everyone to do the right thing even when no one is looking,” said the club’s president Joan Smikle-Gutzmore.

Guidance Counsellor Suzette Smith thanked the young boy’s parents for the good job they have done raising him. He lives with his father Rudolph Green and his step-mother Venice Carter in Port Antonio.

“We need this kind of thing in our society where everyone can understand that our society can be a place where we can live in peace, where we can respect people and their property and where we can live in harmony and love. Thank you so much, Rodane and to your parents for the way they groomed you. What you did is coming from some special place,” she said.

“I am still in awe… and overjoyed by what this young man did. There is hope and it is encouraging to know that our students are actually listening. This is a very significant honour that Rodane has come through these halls here and responded in that manner. There is hope for our youths and we continue to teach values and attitudes to our children and hope they practice to do what is right,” she added.

Rodane’s form teacher, Radhica Robins, is hoping other children will be inspired by his story and emulate his actions. She cried with pride during the ceremony.

“I hope that his story will help other students to demonstrate acts of kindness throughout the whole Jamaica. I am very, very proud of him because he stood out,” she said with a smile.