How a Minnesota Navy Veteran Became TikTok’s Newest Star
79-year-old Minnesota Navy veteran Kenny Jary from Mahtomedi knew nothing about TikTok up until a few weeks ago. Now he is TikTok's newest star thanks to his neighbor Amanda and the untimely breakdown of his mobility scooter.
Kenny's neighbor Amanda runs a TikTok account called @DidYouKnowThatASL. She tells KARE 11 that the account makes "'educational videos for the deaf community that are fun and engaging.'" With Kenny being down to try anything, he decided he wanted to learn more about TikTok and sign language. Eventually, Kenny created his own TikTok account.
Kenny's TikTok is called @patrioticKenny and I'm pretty sure one of the big inspirations behind the name is that his mobility scooter is all decked out and very patriotic (on top of the fact that he's a veteran). Speaking of the scooter, though, sadly it met an untimely ending when Kenny was trying to go to the coffee shop. When someone was able to take a look at the scooter, he found out that it was beyond repair.
Mobility scooters are not cheap! So having something like that suddenly poop out on you is super unfortunate. But Amanda was determined to help Kenny and she made a TikTok about Kenny's scooter. She said, "'I was thinking, if we got lucky, maybe he'd get like a hundred dollars off a scooter or something.'"
But Kenny got WAY more than a hundred dollars. In just a few hours he had gotten $5,000! And now his GoFundMe is over $101,000 all thanks to Amanda and Kenny's new TikTok stardom.
What a heartwarming story! Kenny will use the money to obviously get a new scooter (2 actually! You can find the video about that below.) but he also plans to use it to get new teeth, pay off debts, move into a safer home, and pay it forward to other veterans in need.