A senior Walmart worker couldn't afford to retire. A 15-second video brought her a suprising $180,000.

Even the smallest act of kindness holds a lot of significance but in the connected age, it can also add tremendous value to someone's life when coupled with the power of social media. The case of elderly Walmart worker Nola Carpenter stands as a testament to that since her life completely turned around after TikToker Devan Bonagura (@dbon973_) came across her at the store and decided to help her. He made a 15-second video for his TikTok account and set up a fundraiser that collected more than $180,000 since the video became viral.

"Life Shouldn't Be This Hard"

In November 2022,  the 19-year-old TikToker came across an elderly worker in the breakroom of a Walmart store. Bongura, who worked for a third-party supplier to the store was struck by the worker's tenacity. He made a secret video of her in which her name tag could be seen. The worker, Nola, was wearing a Walmart employee vest in the break room where she stared down at the food in front of her. Bongura shared the small clip with the caption “Life shouldn’t be this hard…”

The video quickly amassed thousands of views and people encouraged Bongura to set up a GoFundMe page for Nola. Bongura did just that and created a page titled “Let’s help Nola retire.” The video soon blew up gathering millions of views from people across the world, and the fundraiser launched with a target to collect just $10,000, raised more than $100,000 in less than 24 hours.

Bongura clarified to his viewers that every single penny donated would go straight to Nola and even got in touch with Nola's family to initiate the process of transferring the funds.

Dreams do Come True

Three days after the fundraiser went live, Bongura posted another update where he met with Nola at the parking lot of the Walmart store. The creator informed Nola that her story is now viral across social media and a fundraiser had amassed over $110,000 for her. However, Nola sadly responded that it was still not enough for her to retire. She shared that she still had to pay off the mortgage on her house and that was the only reason why she continued working at Walmart.

She said she would need about $60,000 to pay for her house and only after that, she could think about retiring or going to the Bahamas. “That’s what’s holding me at work—the house,” she told Devan. Bongura once again posted a video within a month to share some good news and was seen with Nola at her house.

Bongura told Nola that the fundraiser had crossed $181,000 and asked her what she planned to do with it. Nola finally said that she would be able to comfortably pay off the mortgage on her house and retire happily.

She thanked the creator and all of his viewers for all the help and donations. She said she would continue to work at the store but only to help out during the holidays and she would retire at the end of the year.