Community Helps Desperate Veteran Mocked For Selling Hearing Aids

NORTH MANKATO, MN — Gilbert Hoppe, 75, is battling cancer for the second time in his life. The Army veteran needed a car to get to his VA appointments for chemotherapy, but didn't have the cash to buy one.

To raise money, Hoppe — who served in the military from 1962 to 1966 — tried to sell his hearing aids on the Mankato Area For Sale Facebook page.

Rather than stepping up to help a desperate veteran, the page's users mocked him. One called him an idiot, and told him he was foolish for trying to sell hearing aids.

"It was pretty rude, the way some of them were talking," Hoppe, a resident of North Mankato, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Thankfully, a number of good Samaritans stepped in.

Kristi Bighley, Jena Faue, Christina Anderson, and Chris Wright reached out and learned that, while fighting cancer, Hoppe also looks after his wife, Linda, who suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Both Hoppe and his wife are on oxygen.

The group began organizing a silent auction at Eagle Lake American Legion Post 617. They also created a GoFundMe page titled "Helping Gilbert Hoppe."

"I had seen a post on a Mankato for sale site of this gentleman trying to sell a pair of hearing aids to help afford a vehicle," Anderson wrote on the page. "I was appalled by the negative response he was getting and myself along with a bunch of others came forward and would like to help him out!"

On Sunday, about 100 people turned out for the spaghetti dinner and silent auction benefiting Hoppe.

"And really the whole community, Mankato, Madison Lake, Eagle Lake, they all came together and donated," Bighley told KARE 11.

"It surprised me at first," he told the Star Tribune. "I felt glad that people wanted to help me."

Between the American Legion fundraiser and the GoFundMe page, more than $13,000 was raised for Hoppe by Monday morning.

Thanks to his community, the Army veteran forced to sell his hearing aids can now keep them and still afford a new car.

Image via GoFundMe