A 90-year-old disabled Air Force veteran living in New Hampshire has raised more than $365,000 after a TikTok user filmed him pawning his jewelry to pay rent for himself and his wife, who has dementia, to avoid eviction.
TikTok user Jenelle Marie ran into a man calling himself Donald at US Gold and Pawn in Manchester, where he told her about his financial situation.
Donald explained that his landlord has increased the rent, he is struggling to pay it, and his wife has recently been diagnosed with dementia. He said he fears he may lose his home or that his wife may be forced to move into a nursing home.
Marie set up a GoFundMe page to help ease Donald’s financial stress, and as of Monday morning, the fundraiser had raised more than $365,000.
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Donald said her landlord has increased her rent and she is struggling to keep up with her payments. (GoFundMe)
She posted a video on TikTok shortly after the fundraiser began, handing Donald an envelope containing the $1,200 that had been raised to that point.
Donald was initially reluctant to accept the money, but Marie insisted.
The $1,200 allowed him to keep the jewelry he had pawned and pay off the debt he owed to his landlord.
“You really are an angel in disguise,” 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 received,” said Donald, who turns 91 on Aug. 25.
Marie wrote on the GoFundMe page that the fundraiser had raised $164,000 so far, calling it a “truly beautiful and moving moment” and something she’ll “never forget.”
“He gently told us he would never be able to thank us or those who donated,” she wrote. “He said he didn’t deserve to be thanked. He was ‘just a regular guy,’ but we explained to him that he was so much more than that!”
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She said fundraising efforts will continue until she and Donald meet with an attorney and find a way to deposit the funds in a secure account that Donald can access.
“We are simply blown away by the kindness that exists out there that we rarely hear about. You are all like angels in disguise and this is exactly the type of love that this world needs,” Marie wrote.
