88-year-old veteran who was working five days a week can finally retire after crowdfunding raises $1M for him
Internet “positive influencers” helped raise almost $1.2 million for 88-year-old senior A person who works five days a week in a supermarket and finally allows himself to retire.
Originally retired Ed Bambas General Engines He lost his pension after the company went bankrupt in 1999, and while working as a self-service cashier at Meijer in Brighton, Michigan, he caught the attention of Australian social media influencer Samuel Weidenhofer.
According to Weidenhofer, someone who commented on one of his videos said that an “82-year-old” was still working and helping customers.
As a result, Weidenhofer booked a flight to Michigan and, along with another influencer from Detroit named Mike McKinstry, they worked to find Bambas.
“We walked around Meijer for about two hours looking for this friendly, cheerful old man and we ran into Ed at the register and knew right away it was him,” McKinstry said. Detroit’s WXYZ news.
Ed Bambas, 88, still works five days a week at the Meijer supermarket in Brighton, Michigan (GoFundMe)
a video Much of the interaction posted on TikTok and Instagram quickly reached millions of views, and Weidenhofer Set up GoFundMe Fundraiser for Bambas.
The fundraiser surpassed the $1 million goal in less than 48 hours and is still running at over $1.2 million as of Wednesday.
In the viral video, Bambas explained that he started working at General Motors after serving in the military in the 1960s.
He retired from his job in 1999 and believed that he would live comfortably with his pension with his wife, Joan.
“I felt comfortable. I felt like I had a solid financial foundation. I owned my own home,” Bambas told reporters on WXYZ this week. “We had no major concerns.”
But he lost his pension in 2012 following General Motors’ 2009 bankruptcy filing and subsequent restructuring, he said. Shortly after this, his wife became ill.
“The thing that upset me the most was that they took away both my wife’s pension and health insurance because she was really sick.”
His wife died seven years ago, and he said, “I’ve been trying to rebuild myself ever since.”
“When my wife died, I didn’t have enough income to pay for this place or the other bills I had accumulated due to my wife’s illness,” Bambas said.
He explained that he eventually had to sell his house and go back to work, first at a hardware store and then at Meijer.
“It wasn’t hard for me to do this because I knew I had to do it,” Bambas said. “I’m lucky God gave me a body strong enough to stand there eight, eight and a half hours a day.”
In 2012, the year Bambas lost his GM pension, the U.S. automaker regained its position as the world’s largest automaker by sales, a significant turnaround from its 2009 bankruptcy.
For Bambas, this recognition came as a surprise. “It came out of nowhere; I really mean it,” Bambas said.
The crowdfunder is still open and accumulating funds; Meanwhile, according to reports, Bambas is currently unaware of the extent of money flowing to support him.
Independent Contacted GM for comment.
