More than $500K raised for 78-year-old DoorDash driver forced out of retirement – National
In the video shared by Smith, Pulley is captured on doorbell video delivering the order to her doorstep, slowly walking up the pathway towards her home, before hesitating for a brief moment in front of the steps that lead to her front porch. He carefully walks up the stairs and gingerly bends down to drop off Smith’s order.
Smith decided to start a fundraiser for Pulley after she was able to “track down Richard and learned he does DoorDash due to his wife being fired from her job (at no fault of her own) and by the time they pay their monthly expenses plus purchase their medication, there is nothing left,” according to the GoFundMe page.
“Let’s help Richard go back into retirement,” the page added.
The GoFundMe post had raised more than US$552,000 of its $600,000 goal from more than 18,000 donations as of Friday afternoon.
Smith tracked down Pulley and his wife, Brenda, to tell them about the funds raised for them and met with them at a local restaurant on Thursday morning.
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“When you’re past your mid-70s, there’s not exactly a line of people waiting to hire you,” Brenda told NBC affiliate WSMV of turning to DoorDash for work.
“With just one income in the family, you have to push … Just losing that, we had to supplement it,” Pulley said about his wife losing her job.
“It’s just really difficult to believe that there’s that many people that are that generous to try to help us … People that don’t even know us,” Brenda said of the donations.
The couple plans to use the funds to slow down and reduce financial stress on their 56-year-old marriage, WSMV reports.
“Sometimes you just look at all the things that you need to pay … because if it don’t, you’re going to end up in the hospital … with something even more expensive than that,” Brenda said, who has thousands of dollars in medical costs a year.
The couple thanked Smith for setting the campaign to help them out, with Brenda saying, “She’s remarkable. I just can’t believe that someone would be that caring to set this up for us.”
“We appreciate every one of them … it’s taking a lot of pressure off of us … and making life livable once again,” Pulley added of all the donations.
This isn’t the first time someone has started up a fundraiser for a senior person in their community; in December, Australian content creator Sam Weidenhofer raised over $1.7 million for an 88-year-old army veteran from Michigan, who gained internet fame after a video of him went viral. The man explained in the video that he had to work in a grocery store to make ends meet.
The man, Ed Bambas, caught the attention of Weidenhofer — known for his videos about spreading kindness — after a person familiar with the store where he works nominated him in the comments of one of his videos.
At the end of the TikTok, Weidenhofer asked for permission to share Bamba’s story so people could help him out, and then directed followers to a GoFundMe for the grocery store worker.
“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,” Weidenhofer wrote on Instagram photo of the pair smiling.
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
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