One little boy’s wave brings a North Carolina neighborhood together

Four-year-old Roman Butzlaff greeted passersby outside his Concord, North Carolina, home with a wave and a quick “hey,” and Wade Fulgum, who lived across the street, eventually walked over to meet the boy who kept waving. That first hello turned into regular visits, and soon neighbors who barely knew one another were showing up for Roman’s soccer games, basketball games, baseball games, swimming lessons and preschool open house.

Anna Butzlaff said Roman woke up every day excited to say hi to somebody. She said he had been carrying an “inner loneliness” after his parents broke up about a year earlier, when his father moved to Florida and his grandparents remained out of state. Roman’s cheerfulness hid what he was feeling, she said, and at first the attention from neighbors felt strange because she barely knew them. But she went along with it because Roman was happy, and by the time his birthday party came around, she said the only invitations she needed to send were to his senior-citizen neighbor friends.

About a dozen neighbors have now been brought together around Roman, and many of them say they would have barely known each other without him. The street began to work differently once people stopped only passing by and started stopping to talk, wave back and show up. Anna Butzlaff said her son’s “love thy neighbor” attitude spread from one doorstep to the next, turning a child’s routine greeting into a shared rhythm for the block.

Concord’s official population estimate stood at 115,053 on Oct. 2, 2025, up from 105,329 in the 2020 Census. Steve Hartman, a CBS News correspondent since 1996, told the story in his On the Road feature, which has long focused on small acts of kindness and character. By the time Roman’s birthday party arrived, the guest list had already mapped the neighborhood, one wave at a time.