A FedEx courier and former security guard from Illinois was surprised with an invitation to meet with Donald Trump after the President-elect saw a story on the struggling single father. But the special meeting wasn’t the only surprise. The young man was stunned when Trump presented him with a check for $10,000.

Shane Bouvet, a 23-year-old single dad, was featured in a Washington Post story highlighting his visit to D.C. to support Donald Trump’s inauguration.

The paper revealed that Bouvet was headed to D.C. in a borrowed suit and donated shoes to celebrate Trump’s oath of office.

“This is pretty much the biggest thing I’ve done in my life,” Bouvet told the paper. “I don’t get out much. I’m a small-town, blue-collar guy.”

But a mere visit to Washington to see this historic day was far from the only notable thing about Bouvet’s visit, because Trump himself saw the paper’s feature on Bouvet and invited the young man to a one-on-one meeting.

On Thursday, only a day before he took the oath of office to become the 45th president of the United States of America, Donald Trump met Mr. Bouvet, shook his hand, and offered some help.

“This is the greatest guy,” Trump said as he shook Bouvet’s hand in a tented area behind the Lincoln Memorial on Thursday, the Post reported.

Bouvet called his father and had him say hello to the president in waiting. The President-elect laughed that Bouvet’s father, who is also named Don, has “a great name.”

After Bouvet’s phone call back home, Trump signed autographs for the young man’s son and then came the big surprise.

As Mr. Bouvet prepared to end his historic meeting with the President-elect, Donald Trump handed him a personal check for $10,000.

As he walked away stunned and crying, Bouvet muttered aloud, “Did that just happen?”

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.