Army veteran Ed Bambas, 88, breaks down after receiving $1.77M check from inspired internet donors
Ed Bambas, the 88-year-old Michigan grocery store worker who captured hearts worldwide, nearly lost his footing upon receiving a staggering $1.77 million from generous internet donors eager to help him retire.The Army veteran burst into tears when Australian positivity influencer Sam Weidenhofer — who shared the octogenarian’s heartbreaking story of grief and financial struggles online this week — presented the life-changing check at a private ceremony at Foguth Financial Group in Brighton Friday afternoon.
“Thank you … oh my God,” Bambas said after the big reveal, according to a video shared by WXYZ.“I wish my wife were here, but it’s something that dreams are made out of, trust me, from my beginnings to here.”Until Friday, the widowed senior had no idea a GoFundMe launched Monday by the content creator had raised the eye-popping fortune.Weidenhofer said the massive payout was one of the largest individual fundraisers in GoFundMe history.Bambas’s story went viral this week after Weidenhofer — on a US Kindness Tour through Christmas — walked into a Meijer grocery store in Brighton on Nov.
25 and met the elder employee, who tearfully revealed he had been forced to work full-time as a cashier to make ends meet after losing his pension.The father of two told the Melbourne influencer that he retired from General Motors in 1999 — only for the company to go bankrupt in 2012, wiping out his pension and insurance.At the same time, his beloved wife of more than 50 years fell gravely ill, according to the touching video posted on Instagram Monday.
The crushing double blow left him drowning in debt, forcing him to sell his home just to “make it through.”“The thing that hurt me the most was when my wife was really sick and when they took the pension, they also took the health care coverage and all but $10,000 of my life insurance,” Bambas said in the video.After his wife, Joan, died seven years ago, he had no choice but to return to a grue...