E-Paper
Who is Ed Bambas? The 88-year-old Army vet whose viral story inspired nearly $1.5 million in donations
Ed Bambas, an 88-year-old Army veteran working full-time at a Michigan supermarket, went viral after an influencer shared his story.
Ed Bambas is set to receive a life-changing surprise. The 88-year-old Army veteran, who still works full-time at a grocery store, will soon be handed a cheque worth nearly $1.5 million, money raised online to help him finally retire and live comfortably.
The money was raised through a GoFundMe launched by an Australian influencer who happened to meet Bambas during his travels. He interviewed the 88-year-old and uploaded the interaction on social media, leading to it going viral. Support flowed in from all quarters as people wanted to help out the senior citizen with his finances.
Who is Ed Bambas?
According to the New York Post, Ed Bambas is an 88-year-old employee at the Meijer grocery store in Brighton, Michigan. He is an Army veteran who worked at General Motors and retired from there in 1999. However, the company went bankrupt in 2012, and that led to Bambas’ pension getting wiped out.
Things became even more critical for the Army vet when his wife, to whom he had been married for more than 50 years, fell seriously ill. With no pension and no healthcare coverage, Bambas had to sell his house and property to fund his wife’s treatment and make ends meet.
After his wife died seven years ago, the Post informs, he had to go back to work – that too, a 40-hour workweek at a supermarket 45 miles west of Detroit. Bambas has been doing this job for the last five years.
Also read: Influencer Keith Castillo faces backlash after handing out machetes, alcohol to homeless people
Fate intervenes
Things took a fortuitous turn for Ed Bambas when an Australian influencer called Samuel Wiedenhofer met him and shared his story online.
“I sold my house, sold the property I had and we made it through," Bambas said tearfully in the video shared by Wiedenhofer, NBC Chicago reported. "My wife died seven years ago. Since then, I've been trying to re-establish myself.”
After the GoFundMe was launched by the Australian influencer, the money started coming in. According to the New York Post, more than 36,000 people made around 50,000 donations, which, when last checked, amounted to $1.443 million. The spate of donations started with Wiedenhofer putting in $400 himself.
Samuel gave an update that they were successful in raising $1 million in just 36 hours. He wrote, “In just under 36 hours, we’ve shattered every expectation, raising over $1,000,000 for Ed Bambas, a remarkable 88-year-old veteran who has been working 5 days a week, 8 hours a day, just to get by.”
