(Newser) – Whoever said no good deed goes unpunished probably never got six figures out of the act. But turning in a lost backpack with $42,000 in cash and traveler's checks inside has paid off for Glen James, who's raked in more than $130,000 in donations from across the country as of this writing. It all comes from an online fund, set up by a stranger touched by the Good Samaritan and homeless Bostonian, the BBC reports. "The fact that he's in the situation he is, being homeless, it blew my mind that he would do this,'' Ethan Whittington tells the AP.

Whittington, 27, says the crowdfunding campaign on gofundme.com "caught on like wildfire" and he's talked with James on the phone about visiting Boston to hand over the money. Since hitting his $50,000 goal, the marketing accounts manager has bumped that number up to $250,000—so James can buy a house, CBS Boston reports. "After all the stuff you hear on the news, you wonder about people," Withington says. "If we can get more people to do this we could completely change the world, one person at a time." (Read more homeless stories.)

