A 15-second clip of an exhausted 81-year-old cashier went viral on social media and raised over $186,000 to help Nola Carpenter pay off her mortgage and retire.
A Break Room Moment Went Viral
Nineteen-year-old Devan Bonagura worked for a third-party company that supplies phone services to a Walmart in Hackettstown, New Jersey.
He was not employed directly by Walmart, but he often found himself in the store as part of his job. That was where he first laid eyes on Nola Carpenter, an 81 year old associate, looking tired as can be sitting in the break room.
Bonagura filmed the elderly woman on Nov. 3, 2022 and captioned the TikTok “Life shouldn’t be this hard.” He posted the video on the social media platform and it instantly went viral with more than 30 million views and 4 million likes. The comment section quickly became flooded with people asking how they could help.
One comment, which read “GOFUNDME ASAP,” received 130,000 likes. Bonagura decided to take action, and what he did next was even more impressive than the viral video.
Part of the reason the clip resonated so profoundly was its authenticity. The clip did not depict some feel-good inspirational story—it showed an exhausted older woman doing her job. That lack of drama was probably the reason so many people stopped to watch the 15-second clip in the first place.
A Fundraiser Exploded Overnight
Two days later, Bonagura set up a GoFundMe page for Nola Carpenter. Donations poured in, and the balance on the fundraising page crossed six figures within 24 hours. Bonagura returned to the Walmart parking lot to inform the elderly woman in person, but she told him that the money would not be enough to pay off her mortgage.
She explained to him that she still had some money left on her house, and that was the reason why she continued to work—”That’s what’s holding me at work—the house,” she said, according to Unilad. It appeared that news of her situation had reached others, as well, because shortly after, people started donating even more.
A store manager reportedly asked Bonagura to remove the video after receiving inquiries, and his employer placed him on paid suspension for filming the TikTok in the first place. Bonagura continued to keep the GoFundMe page active, and community donations continued to roll in.
Twenty Years on the Job
By the time the fundraising campaign concluded, Nola Carpenter had worked at that Walmart for 20 years. She was a grandmother, and when the donations crossed the threshold needed to pay off her mortgage, the GoFundMe link was transferred to her daughter, Kathy Carpenter, so that she could manage the disbursement of the funds.
On November 13, 2022—ten days after the original TikTok video—Bonagura returned to the store with news for Carpenter. The balance on the fundraising page had crossed the $180,000 mark, which was more than enough to pay off her mortgage.
The woman was delighted but also a bit sad to think that she would not be returning to the store every day. “They look for me every day,” she said.
However, she was not entirely ready to retire just yet—and she informed Bonagura as much. “I’m going to stay until Christmas,” she said, “it will be good to stay home,” according to NJ 1015’s report on the exchange. When the holiday season concluded, Carpenter would be able to enjoy her retirement with the help of the community.
When the fundraiser officially concluded, it had raised over $186,000 from roughly 13,500 donors, an average gift of about $14 per person, enough to fill a stadium.
Why So Many Retirement-Age Workers Stay on the Clock
Carpenter was just one of many older Americans who continued to work well into their retirement years. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly 1 in 5 Americans aged 65 and older were still working in 2024.
Older Americans who remained in the labor force were more likely to do so part-time than full-time, but the share of older Americans who remained in the labor force had been rising steadily in recent years.
A combination of factors, including the cost of housing, not enough money saved for retirement and rising prices, has led more Americans to choose to work later in life, the Pew Charitable Trusts said. For most Americans, the Social Security Administration recommended a full retirement age of 66 to 67 years old, depending on the year of birth.
It was often used as a measure to see if someone could afford to retire or not. To put this in context, just over 10 percent of older Americans were living below the financial hardship threshold, and many more were just barely above it, meaning that sometimes a paycheck could be worth more than a pension.
Crowdfunding had become one of the easiest ways for communities to band together and fill that gap when one person or family needed help. GoFundMe was one of the largest crowdfunding services in the country, and it specialized in helping everyday people raise money from their peers.
In short, it was a lifeline for people who needed a helping hand when a viral video made them feel like they had one.
Retail wages helped explain why the math was so difficult for Nola Carpenter. At the time of her viral social media post in November 2022, Walmart’s average wage for its employees was just over $17 per hour, according to the Unilad report on the fundraiser.
The big-box store’s national wage average did not cross $17.50 until early 2023, when a separate round of wage increases went into effect.
A New Chapter Began in January 2023
With her mortgage paid off, Carpenter set her retirement date for January 1, 2023. She decided to stay on the job through the holidays to repay the kindness shown to her by the community.
People continued to return to the TikTok videos to express their gratitude to Bonagura, and many of them commented on how little older workers were often appreciated for their contributions. One popular comment read, “A lot of older people are isolated even by family,” according to the Washington Examiner report on the GoFundMe campaign.
Bonagura said the outpouring of support only reinforced the lesson that a simple social media post and a caring community could do incredible things for someone in need. He regretted having to miss work due to the initial TikTok but was happy to see the fundraiser come to a successful conclusion.
Carpenter’s regular customers continued to see her for the rest of that holiday season. After twenty years of hard work, she was able to enjoy her retirement with the help of the community. Her mortgage was fully paid off, and she no longer had to worry about the daily financial pressures that had kept her working well into her eighties.