An American grandmother who was bullied by children on a school bus finally got a chance to thank a Toronto man who helped raise more than $650,000 on her behalf.
Karen Klein and Max Sidorov met for the first time on Tuesday in front of television cameras at her home in Greece, New York. The two hugged, laughing as they introduced themselves.
“You look better than in the pictures,” Sidorov told Klein, who has received international attention since a video of her being teased by several pre-teen students went viral.
The video, posted last week, shows 68-year-old Klein being taunted and teased by the pre-teens she is in charge of monitoring on a school bus from Greece Athena Middle School, near Rochester.
The 10-minute video, taken by one of the students with a cellphone, shows the kids mercilessly making fun of her about her weight and perspiration. They taunt, "Oh my God, your glasses are foggy from your freakin' sweat, you fat a**" and poke her while jeering, "Look at all this flab here."
Klein ignores most of the taunts, but tells them at one point, "Unless you have something nice to say, don't say anything at all." She's told to "shut the f*** up."
Eventually, Klein turns her head to the window and begins to cry.
Sidorov, 25, launched a fundraising campaign on the website Indiegogo after watching the video. The campaign has raised more than $650,000 in donations from across the globe.
"I saw the video and was so heartbroken and so sad that somebody could do something like that to another individual. Especially an old lady like her – she seems like a nice lady. I just felt compelled to act," Sidorov told CTV News last week.
Sidorov is scheduled to receive the donations from the funding website on July 20 and is expected to release the funds to Klein some time after that.
Klein has received an outpouring of support following the video. She has also been offered a free trip to Disneyland, and still receives boxes of cards and letters from strangers every day.
