With the help of her granddaughter, and the generosity of strangers, 91-year-old Betty Glover is finally able to retire.
Glover has spent the last decade working at WinCo, a grocery store in Oregon. A few weeks ago, her granddaughter helped her set up a GoFundMe page with the goal of raising US$40,000.
As of Thursday afternoon, donors had more than doubled that original goal and the campaign was approaching US$87,000 (about $118,000).
“I never even thought I’d make $40,000. It really is heartwarming, and it makes me want to cry,” Glover told her local paper, the Rogue Valley Times.
On the fundraising page, Glover notes that although she loves her customers and the people she works with, she needs to retire as her eyesight is failing due to macular degeneration.
“To retire I need to pay off the fifth wheel I live in. If I can do this, I will have enough to pay for the rent of the space, groceries and medications that I need,” Glover wrote.
According to the Rogue Valley report, Glover has been working for more than seven decades, having entered the workforce at 20 years old after graduating with an accounting degree from California State University, Fresno.
Her previous jobs include working in a bakery, operating a restaurant with her husband, and working for a roofing company.
When that company closed in 2009, Glover filled out a job application at her local WinCo.
“It was back when you filled out the old paper applications,” Glover said. “I figured there was no way they were gonna hire me, but they did.”
After her last shift, Glover intends on spending as much time as possible with her family, which includes two kids, four grandkids, six great-grandkids and two great-great-grandkids.
“I’ve worked all my life, but I never even thought about being in my 90s, much less that I would still be working,” she said. “I’ve just never known anything different than working.”
Senior workers turning to fundraising campaigns to fuel their retirement has been a growing and troubling trend in recent years.
In December, Rory McCarty, a TikTok creator in the U.S., raised nearly US$100,000 on GoFundMe to allow Butch, an 82-year-old Walmart employee, to finally retire.
More recently, three high school students in Texas led a GoFundMe campaign for an 80-year-old custodian worker at their school. The man, known as Mr. James, had previously retired but was forced back to work after a hike in his rent. The campaign netted nearly US$271,000.
Earlier this year, a report from BMO found that fewer than half of Canadians are confident they will have enough money to retire as planned, a 10 per cent decrease from its 2020 report.
As for Glover, her final day of work will be May 1. Shortly after that, she’ll celebrate her 92nd birthday.
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