Jenelle Marie wanted to raise $1,500 for a man she knew from work. His name was Donald. He brought jewelry into U.S. Gold and Pawn in Manchester, New Hampshire, because he was short of money for bills. He was also caring for his wife, who had dementia.
Donald was 90 when Jenelle started the appeal in 2024. On GoFundMe, she described him as a disabled Air Force veteran and said his rent was rising. He was afraid they would lose their home. He worried, too, that his wife would have to go into a care facility.
Jenelle was trying to find them somewhere cheaper. Her page asked for leads on a one-bedroom home on the first floor, in the Manchester area. The couple had no children or remaining family, she wrote. She'd looked at assistance programs, but the waiting lists weren't going to provide a quick answer.
Meanwhile, Donald still had jewelry at the pawn shop. Jenelle told Good Morning America that she spoke to the owner about his situation. He agreed to stop charging interest. She opened the fundraiser, and about a month later she and her fiancé had roughly $1,300 to give him.
That first gift, presented in August, covered most of what Donald needed to recover his jewelry. Ocean State Media reported on August 13 that he owed $1,380. He paid the other $80 himself. Jenelle filmed their exchange and put it on TikTok, taking a story familiar to people around the shop to a much larger audience.
Then the amounts changed fast. On August 9, Donald was presented with a check for $250,000. By August 13, nearly 14,000 donors had contributed $385,565, according to Ocean State Media. The small appeal had become something people well beyond Manchester were willing to support.
By September 27, GMA reported more than $446,000 raised. The total belonged to the campaign; it wasn't a report of another check for that amount. Keeping the dates and figures together helps explain why coverage of the same fundraiser carried several different numbers.
There was work to do with the money as well. In the August report, Jenelle described plans to meet with Donald and an attorney about keeping the funds safe and accessible. Those arrangements mattered alongside the donations. The appeal had begun because he needed help with a place to live and bills to pay.
Donald turned 91 in August. Both he and Jenelle asked GMA to leave their last names out of its story. He didn't give the program an interview, but he spoke to local station WMUR about how grateful he was and how unexpected the response had been.
The fundraiser couldn't tell readers everything about the couple's future. It did show what happened after someone at a pawn shop took an interest in a customer who was struggling. A collection that first helped him retrieve jewelry eventually attracted hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations.
Good Morning America: September 27, 2024 interview with Jenelle Marie
