Andy Larsen is a sports writer, but with so many
games scratched during the pandemic he has
spent a lot of time digging into coronavirus data
and its sobering implications.
Then on Monday, while he was sorting his spare
change — some from a childhood piggy bank
shaped like SpongeBob SquarePants — it struck
him: Other people in Utah could use the money
more than he could.
His composed a tweet to his nearly 27,000
followers, hoping to quickly find someone who
could use the $165.84.
Within a minute, someone offered to
essentially double his donation with a deposit
into his Venmo account. Then someone else
pitched in, and another. It kept snowballing as
Utah Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox retweeted it, calling
the effort “very cool.”
“I figured I would help a couple families with
Thanksgiving, or a family with three kids buy
Christmas presents,” said the 29-year-old Larsen,
who covers the NBA’s Utah Jazz for the Salt Lake
Tribune. “I was shocked ... within five, 10 minutes
we got $1,000.”
By Wednesday, he had collected more
than $52,000.
Among the first to get on board was Jeff Jones, a
54-year-old partner at a CPA firm in South Jordan.Image: Andy Larsen