In an interview with ABC4 News, Larry explained why he took the delivery job despite his medical condition. “I had a stroke in June, so I was making extra money because our swamp coolant got blown on our roof, and we got a big hole, and I installed it, and I needed a little extra money to fix that,” Larry said. .
All the money raised was more than enough to help Larry with the necessary repairs to his house.
In fact, he says he no longer needs to make deliveries and shares the donations with others in need. He also urged enthusiastic donors to donate their money to charity instead. “I was just trying to get them to donate to food banks or toddler toys or something, instead of giving me money,” Larry said.
Weiss was happy with how things turned out. It was the snowball effect of kindness that led to something so much more.
“It might seem a little too small, it might seem like it can’t get big enough, but you never know when it might snowball, which is a huge chain reaction,” Weiss said. “And that can really make someone’s day and their life, and that can be the positivity they need.”
Although the story is heart-warming and has a happy ending, it received mixed reactions from netizens after it was shared on Twitter. People wondered why an old man had to work just to literally keep a roof over his head.
Twitter user Kelly Sullenberger retweeted the ABC7 Eyewitness News story with the caption, “Here in America, a veteran who recently had a stroke can’t get enough help to keep a roof up. proper over his head. It makes me sick.” In response to his message: “Oh my God, this is heartbreaking.”
Another Twitter user who retweeted it from ABC13 Houston wrote, “Not a touching story.”
“Wt* do we think this veteran warrior should do this to get away with it?” Twitter user @RealPWoodland asked after Action News on 6abc tweeted Larry’s story.
According to The Daily Dot, Larry’s story isn’t the first that was meant to be a “feel-good” piece, but instead led people to criticize the lack of welfare given to some older Americans.
In September of this year, a certain Derlin Newey, also from Utah, appeared on TikTok after the Valdez family posted their interactions when he came to deliver pizza to them.
Like many seniors, Newey found that his retirement income was not keeping pace with his bills, so after retirement he returned to work as a pizza delivery boy. Although he’s 89, he works about 30 hours a week, according to CNN.
Newey has always worked, and taking a delivery job meant he was out in the community, meeting people and providing valuable service. However, living on a stable income was not enough meant that his life was limited, whether due to a lack of money or having to work during his not-so-golden years.
The Valdez family always enjoyed their interaction with him and started asking about him by name. Once they had several videos of Newey’s funny exchanges with the family, the Valdez family reached out to over 50,000 TikTok followers and they came up and raised over $12,000 for Newey.
According to The Daily Dot, Twitter users cited Newey’s story as evidence of a broken system “in that older people, like Larry and Newey, are not getting adequate support from the US government and instead have to rely on the personal kindness of strangers for Support.”
