Jessica Mathews / news@whmi.com


A local veteran is helping to pay it forward in launching a new fundraiser to support veterans across the United States.

88-year-old Ed Bambas, who worked at the Brighton Meijer, was the recipient of a viral GoFundMe campaign last year to help him retire. With nearly $2 (M) million raised, Bambas officially retired for the second time in his life on January 5th. He worked through the holiday season as his way of thanking his coworkers and the community that showed up for him.

Bambas is now partnering up with Sam Weidenhofer, the organizer behind his viral fundraiser, on a new effort to support veterans.

Through GoFundMe’s Communities product, Weidenhofer is launching a campaign designed to spotlight and support 50 veterans across the country. Bambas is personally contributing $1,000 to each fundraiser – totaling $50,000. The new initiative is called “For Your Service, to support 50 veterans in all 50 states”.

With Military Appreciation Month beginning in May, the new campaign is said to create a timely opportunity to highlight not only Bambas’ story, but the broader impact of community support for veterans after they return home.

Weidenhofer told WHMI people were very inspired by Bambas and his story and after hearing it, they were inundated with requests and wanted to do more for veterans in his honor. He said he’ll be traveling as many states as possible and have some other creators jumping on board – sharing the stories across 50 days starting the first of May with a goal to raise $10 (m) million dollars.

Weidenhofer said so many veterans are out there stranded and struggling and going through really difficult times and they are so grateful to be able to help – further referencing the importance of Military Appreciation Month and America’s 250th Anniversary. He noted Ed is helping to kick it off donations, which is amazing, and they are very excited and hope to hit their goal.

Unfortunately, Bambas has been experiencing some health issues as of late but was in extremely good spirits when chatting with WHMI on Wednesday.

Bambas, who turns 89 in October, said he was living check-to-check and “everything coming in was going right back out” but thanks to the generosity of everyone, he was able to quit work and start paying off bills. However, he became really sick this April and had quite a scare while visiting his brother in North Carolina. Bambas said he had a gallbladder problem that turned sepsis and “I’m lucky to be alive right now”. He’s still undergoing treatment and has surgery scheduled in the next week to get everything cleared up.

Bambas said he’s looking forward to doing more golfing and fishing and “just helping people”. He said he had a lot of great relationships with co-workers and customers at Meijer and loved talking with people. Bambas said he thinks his purpose is to help people and “that’s my intention”.

And that’s what he’s doing. For the fundraiser, Bambas said he’ll be contributing to the effort graciously and hopes everybody else does too.

Weidenhofer said the site www.50veterans.com will be launched on Friday, May 1st and will automatically re-direct to the GoFundMe community page for people to donate and learn more about the individual veteran stories.

***We have provided the link top, but note, it will not immediately be active.

The full interview with Bambas is available in the podcast section of our website. That link is provided bottom.