In today’s time, many stories go viral on social media, but there are some stories which directly touch the heart. Recently, one such emotional story came out from America, which made millions of people emotional. This is the story of a 78 year old man, who was forced to work hard even in his old age to meet his wife’s treatment and household expenses.

This elderly man was doing food delivery work in Manchester city of Tennessee state of America. At this stage of age, where most people want to live a comfortable life, this elderly person was delivering food to people’s homes every day. Seeing his hard work and the struggle he was doing for his wife, people’s hearts melted on social media.

Elderly man returns to work for his wife

78-year-old Richard Pulley was already retired. He had spent a large part of his life working and now he wanted to rest, but circumstances forced him to work again. In fact, his wife Brenda had lost her job. Along with his job, his health insurance also ended. After this, it became very difficult for both of them to meet household expenses and medicines. Richard told that he did not want to work, but under compulsion he had to start working again. He said that after paying normal household expenses and medical bills, he was left with almost nothing at the end of the month.

Husband and wife used to do delivery work together

In this difficult time, both the husband and wife together found a solution. They started delivering orders through food delivery apps. Brenda used to drive the car and Richard used to deliver food to homes. Both of them have been married for more than 56 years. Even at this age, both of them remained each other’s support. However, increasing medical expenses and limited income had made his life very difficult.

NEW: Internet users have raised $280,000 for an elderly man who became a DoorDash delivery driver to help pay for his and his wife’s bills.

A Tennessee woman decided to take matters into her own hands when she saw the man delivering her Starbucks.

“I work because I have to. I… pic.twitter.com/qWIXG8ZzSt

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) March 12, 2026

A video changed fate

The turning point of this story came when a woman, Brittany Smith, saw Richard delivering food to her house. He saw in the camera installed outside his house that an elderly man was coming very slowly and carefully to his door, placing his Starbucks order and going back. Brittany became emotional after seeing his age and hard work. He shared this video on the social media platform TikTok and appealed to people to provide information about this elderly person. Within a few hours this video quickly went viral, thousands of people watched this video and started trying to identify the elderly person.

Internet discovered elderly delivery man

Soon social media users found out that the name of the old man seen in the video is Richard Pulley, after which people also came to know the real story of his life. When people came to know that he is working at this age to pay his wife’s medical expenses and household bills, there was a wave of sympathy on the internet.

Also read – Silent Hero: This man waters plants every day on the road divider, people are saluting him on the internet

Campaign started for help

Brittany Smith decided that she would help Richard and his wife. He started an online fund raising campaign for them so that this elderly couple can live their retirement life comfortably without any financial worries. People overwhelmingly supported this campaign. Within a few days thousands of people started donating. Within no time this amount reached millions of dollars. According to reports, people together raised more than 5 lakh dollars (about Rs 4 crore) in aid.

The old man became emotional after seeing the donation

Brittany Smith later met Richard and his wife at a local restaurant and showed them this fundraising page. When the couple came to know that strangers were donating such a huge amount to help them, they became extremely emotional. Richard said that he could not believe that so many people wanted to help him, even though they did not even know him. He said that this is the biggest example of humanity and kindness.

Also read – High voltage drama between mother and daughter in train, hooliganism shown by occupying middle berth; video viral