“Life shouldn’t b this hard,” TikToker Devan Bonguara wrote.

Apparently, there who many who shared this sentiment.

The comment on a video he posted to the social media platform raised more than $180,000 to help an elderly Walmart employee retire.

@dbon973_ :/ I feel bad. #fyp #blowthisup #sad #walmart ♬ Jocelyn Flores – XXXTENTACION

Bonagura, who works for a distributor who sells phones inside of Walmart, took a video of the employee who is named Nola.

The video of Nola sitting alone in the break room, looking pretty exhausted, was viewed more than 24.1 million times.

Commenters encouraged Bonagura to set up a GoFundMe for Nola, and he did. It raised more than $100,000 in about 24 hours.

A video taken on Nov. 5 shows him surprising Nola with the announcement that she had a hefty gift coming her way.

“They saw that you’re a very hard worker, obviously,” he told the woman. “We are all super proud of you, and we wanted to offer you the $110,000 that has been raised for you.”

imgsrc caption=”TikTok Screenshot – dbon973_” link=”https://www.tiktok.com/@dbon973_/video/7161532977300901166?embed_source=70846779%2C120811592%2C120810756%3Bnull%3Bembed_blank&is_from_webapp=v1&item_id=7161532977300901166&refer=embed&referer_url=nj1015.com%2Ftiktok-video-helps-walmart-worker-in-nj-pay-off-house-retire%2F&referer_video_id=7161532977300901166″][/imgsrc]

Nola said she was happy to accept it. However, she’d still have to work to pay off her mortgage. Her husband had gotten into a car accident that left him unable to work.

So, Nola is solely responsible for paying off the $60,000 left on their mortgage.

She said the donations would absolutely help her meet her goal faster and that it wouldn’t take much longer for her to save up the rest of the amount for her to retire safely. Walmart claims that the average hourly wage for their “U.S. frontline associates” is more than $17.

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Yahoo News had that figure at $19. It’s unclear what constitutes a “U.S. frontline associate.” It is unknown was Nola makes per hour.

But if she did make $19 an hour working 40 hours a week, she’d make $39,520 before taxes and the cost of living.

It would likely take her several years to work off that $60,000 debt. An analysis by Massachusetts Institute of Technology estimates a living wage to pay for basic needs to be at $24.16 an hour in 2021.

And that’s not taking recent inflation into account or debt like student loan payments. Walmart has been under fire for years for offering wages so low that workers are required to use public assistance.

This correlates to U.S. taxpayers footing the bill for Walmart’s workers.

A 2014 article by Forbes reported that Walmart cost taxpayers $6.2 billion in public assistance.

Walmart raised wages in 2021 when finding employees to fill low-paying roles became more difficult. But thanks to her fellow man, Nola is on her way to retirement.

After news outlets picked up Nola’s story, it went viral.

She ended up raising a total of $186,000 on GoFundMe and announced that she would retire on the first day of the new year. But that retirement was allegedly almost thwarted by her employer.

Bonguara says that a Walmart store manager reportedly threatened him with legal action if he didn’t take both the video AND GoFundMe down.

The store said they had received threats because of the video.

That individual even allegedly demanded all the proceeds that were donated to Nola be returned. Bonguara refused. He was even penalized by his employer and put on paid suspension. Thankfully Bonguara had a backbone and was going to do what was right regardless.

“They’re getting a lot of backlash, so they told me I need to delete the video and delete the GoFundMe and return all the money to the people that donated it or they’re going to get the cops involved. I told them ‘do what you gotta do because I’m getting the money to this woman one way or another,'” Bonagura said a TikTok video.

Watch Nola be surprised by the announcement of the Go Fund Me in the video below.

Please SHARE this with your friends and family.

@dbon973_ WE LOVE YOU NOLA I HOPE THIS HELPS❤️🙏 #blowthisup #fyp #gofundme #nola #walmart #viralvideo ♬ original sound – DBON

Source: New Jersey 101.5, Yahoo!