Global Courant 2023-05-18 17:03:56
Zachery Dereniowski is a friendly TikToker with 16.1 million followers.Zachery Dereniowski via TikTok
TikTok creator Zachery Dereniowski gave a traffic warden $500 as a random act of kindness.
The recipient, Linita Edge, burst into tears and said her family was struggling financially at the time.
Viewers raised another $54,525 for Edge and her family through GoFundMe.
A Detroit traffic cop was awarded $50,000 after a TikTok influencer helped her financial struggle story go viral.
In a TikTok posted on May 15, the day after Mother’s Day, Zachery Dereniowski, a creator of acts of kindness with 16.1 million followers, approached Linita Edge on the street while she was at work directing traffic.
Dereniowski initially asked Edge if she would buy a sweater from him for $1 as part of the stunt for the video. He then asked her some questions about herself, including if she was a fan of the baseball team, the Detroit Tigers.
The video then cut to a clip of Dereniowski asking a man, whom Edge said was her lieutenant, if there was any chance Edge could leave her service early. When he approved, Dereniowski said he would take her to a baseball game that night, and gave her $500 in cash.
“It’s Mother’s Day weekend. I want to celebrate a mother,” said the TikToker.
Edge began to break down in tears, explaining that she had recently told her son that their family “should do it together” to try and cope with the financial problems they were experiencing.
“I told them, ‘we’re just going to have to pray,'” she said, adding, “Thank you Jesus,” in response to TikToker’s generosity.
Dereniowski’s video received 9.5 million views and viewers said they were touched by Edge’s story and her vibrant personality in the video.
“She did everything with a smile on her face with all that pain hiding behind it. A true warrior,” one commenter wrote.
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In the caption below his post, the TikToker directed viewers to a GoFundMe page he set up for Edge, something he does for some of the people who appear in his videos.
In the description of the fundraiser, Dereniowski wrote that the traffic cop recently lost her husband and was now the sole breadwinner for her family. He added that all proceeds from the GoFundMe would go toward “paying rent, food bills, and helping her sons with their education.”
The fundraiser raised $54,525 in three days and on May 17 filmed he himself took Edge back to Comerica Park, a baseball stadium in downtown Detroit, where stadium announcer Chris Butzlaff said over the intercom that the people of Detroit who had seen Dereniowski’s TikTok had raised this extra money for her.
Edge was handed a check for $50,000 and fell to her knees in tears during the video.
In an interview with CBS DetroitEdge said she’s shocked that a TikToker’s request for her to buy a jersey could potentially end with such a huge gift falling into her hands.
“Who knew a T-shirt would change my life,” she told the outlet.
In a statement to Insider, Dereniowski said he’s thankful his “online community came together” to gift Edge the money.
“I hope this ‘viral friendliness’ is contagious and creates a ripple effect in the lives of people who have watched this video,” he added.
Dereniowski is one of many popular TikTokers who post “random acts of kindness,” where creators approach a stranger and give them a monetary gift or offer them a unique opportunity, such as tickets to a sports game or concert.
The genre is loved for how it has empowered users to come together to change lives, and has supported several everyday people with the help they needed Unpleasant retire in the past. However, such videos have also sparked controversy over whether the people in them have agreed be filmed.
For more stories like this, check out coverage from Insider’s Digital Culture team here.
Read the original article Insider
