‘It feels good to be useful’: Richard Pulley, 78, joins $1M virus fundraiser, says he’ll go back to delivering meals

Richard Pulley, a 78-year-old DoorDash deliveryman who raised $1 million on GoFundMe after the Tennessee man’s story went viral, said he will go back to work when things calm down because he feels useful. Brittany Smith saw the 78-year-old man leaving a Starbucks order at the door via her doorbell camera and felt sorry for the man. Brittany called her husband, sent him the video of Pooley and posted a message on Facebook asking for help identifying the man. The elderly deliveryman’s identity was immediately revealed on social media, and Pulley’s story quickly went viral and he began working full-time for DoorDash, completing 6,000 deliveries to date. Since his wife was on expensive medication, he retired and started working to pay the bills. Pulley said his wife worked for an insurance company and they were left in dire straits when the company laid her off. They have social security, but it’s not enough to pay all the bills, he said. Smith said she visited Pooley’s home to provide an additional $200 cash tip, but she received messages on social media from people interested in starting a GoFundMe fundraiser for Richard. The results were incredible, with 32,000 donors raising $957,000 for Richard. DoorDash CEO Tony Xu donated $20,000 to Richard’s fundraiser. The DoorDash team spoke with him and thanked him for his commitment to his work. “I taught myself again how to be a good worker, even though the last few shifts were hard because people stopped to take pictures with me and all kinds of things,” said Pulley, who plans to go back to work despite the comfort he and his wife live in. He said that while he started working for financial reasons, he also got exercise while delivering.