Ex-Louisiana news anchor helps raise $220K for 90-year-old vet pushing shopping carts to make ends meet
A former Louisiana news anchor helped raise more than $220,000 for a 90-year-old veteran who she saw on Memorial Day pushing shopping carts at a local supermarket in blistering heat just to make ends meet.
Journalist Karen Swensen couldn’t believe it when she saw Dillon McCormick working under the hot sun in 90-degree temperatures at a Winn Dixie location in New Orleans – and quickly struck up a conversation with him where he explained he needs the labor intensive job to survive.
The US Air Force veteran even walks more than a mile to work because he doesn’t drive.
Swensen, who used to work at WWL-TV in The Big Easy, started a fundraising push that instantly took off.
“Mr. McCormick is working to EAT, he said. He needs $2500/month to live and says he only gets $1100 from social security,” Swensen wrote on a fundraising page. “So he must push carts in triple digit heat to make ends meet.”
A whopping $222,410 has been raised through GoFundMe as of Wednesday night after it was started earlier this week with thousands of contributors chipping in.
Even “Today” co-host Hoda Kotb, a friend of Swensen, shared the fundraiser on her Instagram page.
Swensen, who now runs a business, told The Post Wednesday night she’s been “blown away” by strangers’ generosity.
And when Swensen broke the news of the high fundraising mark to McCormick, he was also in shock.
“I think it’s great,” he said in an Instagram video Swensen posted online. “At my age it’s probably a miracle.”
McCormick, who doesn’t have an email address, was also skeptical of the news and wary of handing over required financial information to collect the funds so Swensen said she returned with Jefferson Parish Sheriff Joseph Lopinto III on Wednesday to allay any concerns he was being scammed.
The funds will be transferred over to him in a couple of days, she said.
Swensen said in an update on the GoFundMe page that the money raised would be enough for him to leave his job and live in comfort.
“Should he choose to remain working, it will be just that – his choice,” she said.
Swensen told The Post the way people were quick to help left her feeling inspired, hopeful and grateful.
“I was so profoundly upset,” she said when she heard McCormick had no choice but to work at the grocery store. “But I was then equally impacted by the response. It was just a restoration of a belief in humanity.”
