- Spencer B. of SB Mowing performed lawn care work on an elderly woman’s property for free after she faced a $240 fine from the city
- As his footage of his work on Beth’s property went viral, Spencer started a GoFundMe to raise money to fix the woman’s accessibility issues at home — and now hundreds of thousands of dollars has been raised on her behalf
- “I was extremely surprised,” Spencer tells PEOPLE, adding that the sweet messages they’ve gotten through GoFundMe have left Beth “teary-eyed”
When Spencer B., the owner of a Wichita, Kansas, lawn care company, first arrived at an elderly woman’s property to do a job last summer, he was amazed upon seeing the size of her overgrown lawn.
“Beth’s lawn was just crazy,” Spencer, 26, who declined to give his last name, tells PEOPLE, adding that the woman, who has “some accessibility issues,” had “a little bit of a hard time getting around.”
“There were weeds growing up through her deck right out of her door and right down at the front of her stairs and to where she’s basically having to walk through all this crazy overgrowth just to get to her car,” he explains. “And so I told her that I’d just love to clean up for free for her.”
Spencer’s gesture towards Beth didn’t stop from there. A self-described “lawn care and pressure washing social media influencer,” he shared video footage of his work on Beth’s property and the woman’s heartfelt reaction on TikTok, which went viral and garnered over 94 million views. He then started a GoFundMe earlier this week for the woman to help fix some of the accessibility issues around her home. As of Friday, Jan. 17, the fundraiser has generated over $800,000.
“I was extremely surprised,” Spencer, who runs SB Mowing, tells PEOPLE. “My wife and I were thinking we’d raise maybe between $50,000 to $100,000 max.”
Spencer and Beth’s worlds collided when a friend reached out to Spencer about a woman who needed help trimming her lawn. According to Spencer, the city required Beth — whom PEOPLE has attempted to reach out to — to either cut her lawn or she would have to pay a $240 fine, which she couldn’t afford.
As documented in the now-video he later posted on TikTok, Beth apologized for the property’s appearance and told Spencer she spent over a month looking for someone to help.
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The work on Beth’s property took Spencer about 8-9 hours to complete by himself.
“I got it looking honestly better than it’s ever looked,” Spencer tells PEOPLE. “And she was just absolutely stoked and just so excited to have this new brand new looking lawn that she hasn’t had for a really long time since she’s kind of lost her or started to have her accessibility issues.,,It’s very hard work, but it’s really fulfilling”
Upon the job he did on her property, Beth — who may be either 79 or 80 and lives by herself, according to Spencer — could be heard in the video thanking him and saying, “Your work makes me twinkle.”
Opening up about why he decided to share the clip on social media, Spencer says that Beth is the kind of person you can’t help but love — and want to help in any way possible. And once he posted the video on YouTube, he says he “got a lot of messages” from people suggesting he set up a GoFundMe so they could help her too.
Spencer then posted a follow-up TikTok in which he can be seen telling Beth that the GoFundMe raised $500,000, an amount they’ve now far surpassed. In the video, she appeared emotionally moved and asked, “Why?”
Speaking with PEOPLE, Spencer says that he’s gotten “a lot of messages” from people in response to that video — and that all the messages say some version of, “Beth, you’re asking why, but we’re just saying that we love you and you’re a great person. We wanted to do this for you.”
And, he says that after reading those messages to her, “it really made her teary-eyed.”
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As for the money itself, Spencer says he hopes it can be used to make Beth’s home more accessible, making it possible to install a ramp for her door and a chairlift so she can access her washer and dryer downstairs.
He also hopes to be able to pay a company to maintain her lawn for the next several years.
Although thanks to the generosity of thousands of individuals, Spencer says Beth could possibly renovate her home, or, if she chooses, find a new place to live in a retirement community.
“I’ve always been very cautious with giving people money because I know a lot of people work very hard to make that money and donate it,” he says, “And so I want to make sure it’s put to good use.”
“I’ve been talking with an estate attorney, and we’re going to set up a trust for Beth to make sure that, number one, no one’s going to take advantage of her. No family comes in and tries to take advantage of her now that she has that kind of money. And two, I want to make sure it’s not spent on something that shouldn’t be spent on,” he adds.
For Spencer, the experience of helping Beth and seeing the viral reaction to his TikToks and GoFundMe have been surreal. His takeaway from all of this is just get out and help your neighbors “because you never know who’s living around you…Do as much as you can to go help people. If we all do, then it goes a long ways.”
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