Over
$318,000 has been raised for the upstate New York bus monitor who was reduced to tears by a group of horrid schoolboys on the last day of school. Video of the appalling harassment went viral yesterday, and one person had the bright idea to start an Indiegogo fundraiser for the woman, Karen Klein, so she could take a vacation. As of
5:10 p.m. it's $318,902 and counting! Upgrading to a butler room at Sandals will not be a problem.
Klein, who lives near Rochester, has been deluged with media requests since the video went viral—she's booked to talk with Anderson Cooper on CNN and appear on Fox & Friends—and this morning she was interviewed by Good Morning America. "I was just was trying to ignore them,” Klein tells GMA. "Usually I sit right in back, and I should have that day, but I sat one seat ahead so there was one boy in back of me and one boy in front of me. They just kept it up. They thought it was funny.” Making a senior citizen cry by threatening to defecate in her mouth and stab her? Hilarious.
One of the insults was even more sickening than we initially thought. In the video below, you can hear one of the boys say, "You don’t have a family because they all killed themselves because they didn’t want to be near you." The local ABC affiliate reports that Klein's oldest son killed himself ten years ago.
Asked about the huge windfall that resulted from the abuse, she says, "It does make me feel a whole lot better. I appreciated everything. I think it’s awesome." Meanwhile, the students who bullied Klein have been identified, and school administrators are promising severe disciplinary action. Klein says she doesn't want them to face criminal charges, but she wouldn't mind seeing them "grounded all summer, or maybe all year."
The father of one of the boys, who is 13-years-old, tells ABC, "My family’s received death threats. He’s a 13-year-old kid. It was a stupid mistake and he’s paying for it but I just think it’s a little out of control."
