More than $365,000 has been raised for a 90-year-old disabled Air Force veteran living in New Hampshire after a TikTok user filmed him pawning jewelry so he could afford rent for him and his wife with dementia to avoid eviction.
TikToker Jenelle Marie came across the man, identified as Donald, at U.S. Gold and Pawn in Manchester, where he told her about his financial situation.
Donald explained that he was struggling to keep up with his bills after his landlord increased the rent and that his wife had recently been diagnosed with dementia. He said he feared being displaced and the possibility that his wife would be forced to go to a home.
Marie started a GoFundMe page to help ease Donald’s financial stress. The fundraiser has raised more than $365,000 as of Monday morning.
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Donald said he was struggling to keep up with his bills after his landlord increased the rent. (GoFundMe)
She posted a video to TikTok shortly after the fundraiser started, handing Donald an envelope with the $1,200 that had been raised at that time.
Donald was initially reluctant to accept the money, but Marie insisted.
He was able to keep the jewelry he was pawning because of the $1,200 and managed to pay off his debt to his landlord.
“You’re an angel in disguise, you really are,” he told Marie. “I don’t know what to say, I really don’t know what to say.”
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“This is the best birthday present anyone has ever had,” Donald said. He turns 91 on August 25.
Marie wrote on the GoFundMe page that it was “a truly beautiful and emotional moment” and “something that I will never forget” when she told him the fundraiser raised $164,000 at that point.
“He graciously said he could never ever thank us and the people who donated,” she wrote. “He said he didn’t deserve it. He was ‘just an ordinary man’, but we explained to him that he’s so much more than that!”
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She said the fundraiser would remain open until she and Donald can meet with an attorney and figure out how to put the money in a safe account for Donald to access.
Marie wrote that “we are just so blown away at all the kindness that exist out there that we very seldom hear about. You ALL are angels in disguise and THIS type of love is what this world needs.”