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GREECE, N.Y. — A former New York bus monitor who was videotaped being bullied by students was presented with a check Tuesday for more than $703,000.
After seeing the video, Max Sidorov, a 25-year-old nutritionist from Toronto, created a fundraising page on crowdfunding website Indiegogo to fund a vacation for 68-year-old Karen Klein. Klein can be seen in the video trying to ignore merciless taunts and even threats by four boys who were students at Athena Middle School.
The video, captured on a student's cellphone, was later posted to YouTube, where it has been viewed nearly 8.5 million times.
It prompted outrage both within Greece, a Rochester suburb, and throughout the world. The four students involved in the bullying received death threats, according to Rochester police, and were later suspended from school for one year.
Klein, who had worked for the Greece, N.Y., school system for 23 years received flowers, letters and messages from supporters. And when Sidorov started the Indiegogo campaign, the world responded, with $703,833 in donations pouring in from more than 30,000 people in 84 countries, according to the Chronicle Herald.
Sidorov pointed out that the fundraiser, which began as a reaction to cruel words, ended up showcasing the kinder side of human nature.
Klein is using some of the funds to start an anti-bullying foundation to support counseling, awareness and the development of an anti-bullying educational curriculum.
Klein said at the check presentation that she is still not quite sure how the world's attention became focused on her.
"Really all i want to know is why they did it. It's hard to believe, you know, that all these people are telling me that they love me, and I'm trying to think, 'What did I really do?'" she said at the ceremony, according to The Star. "I just haven't been able to get that through my head."
