Gloria's Gladiators Started With 'Nice Old Lady,' Now Will Help Others In Need
WOBURN (CBS) - John Kinney started a fundraising campaign back in August to fix up a house in Woburn belonging to 72-year-old Gloria Scott. His goal? To make the house "safe" and "livable."
He tells us, "It started with a small project to repair a ceiling, and it turned into a worldwide movement."
The fundraising page, simply titled "Nice Old Lady Needs Help," raised more than $100,000, shedding light on a community wanting to help.
Months later, there's still plenty of work going on at Gloria's house, where countless volunteers are donating their time, money and food. John said, "It's just been tremendous. It got so crazy with people dropping off food that we actually had to create a sign-up sheet."
John's brother Dan Kinney has been a part of the effort to fix up Gloria's house from the start. He said, "A lot of people have stepped in and wanted to help out, so we've been cataloging them and it's been everything from people wanting to come over and do yard work, any kind of painting interior, exterior."
But it goes beyond this street in Woburn, as Gloria's Gladiators are on a mission to help others. The Facebook group Gloria's Gladiators has more than 16,000 members, many of them offering their services or posting about others in need.
"We're talking to a lot of different people. There's a lot of people out there that need help. There's a project going on in New Hampshire that we're going to be going up. I'm going to be volunteering some of my time and help out with that, so yeah, we hope to see Gloria's Gladiators all across the United States," John said.
"We have other projects in the works. We a lot of people asking us for help, and we think have some resources that we think we can leverage. This is a really good opportunity to continue this movement and help other people. It doesn't have to be local anymore," Dan added.
