Thank you all for helping me spread a glimpse of hope in such a tragic time!!! YOU GUYS spread God’s love today

Lauren Owen raises over $12k for Waverly flooding victims

Really uplifting movement

WAVERLY, TN – A Midstate woman used the popular Venmo payment app to help a mother impacted by the 2021 flooding in Waverly.

Venmo works similarly to PayPal in that it allows you to pay and request money from people online.

Lauren Owen, a dental hygienist at Dickson Pediatric Dentistry, saw the “Venmo challenge” on social media and was inspired by the idea.

Owen started her Venmo challenge and in just a few days had raised over $12,000 in donations.

Owens used $1,200 of the donations to purchase supplies for local shelters, then used the rest to help the mother of three, who lost her car and apartment to the floods.

Owen gave her a new car, six months of car insurance, and hundreds of dollars in gift cards, as well as clothing, school supplies, and Nintendo Switches for her three children.

This isn’t the first Venmo challenge Owen has organized, either.

In December 2020, she used the payment app to raise money for a waitress struggling through a pandemic.
“My goal was like $200,” Owen said. “Going from $200 to $1,000, I was speechless.”

But the amount kept rising, eventually reaching $2,400.

The Owens sat down for a lunch at Zander’s Woodfired Pizza with their children, and Bridjet Krysz, a waitress walked over to their table.

With the meal finished, Owen explained to Krysz she was about to receive half of the money donated by the Dickson community. Friends and strangers had donated toward Owen’s online fundraising campaign — her goal had been to help someone for the holidays.

In addition to Krysz’s tip, Owen also distributed half of $1,200 among the other staff at the restaurant, giving out $120 to each.

“I have been in the service industry for 11 years and I have never seen anything like that. I have never had anything like that happen to me,” said Krysz, a mother of two young boys.

“It’s really hard to put into words the feeling to know there are so many people in the community who know enough about you, or don’t really know you but are praying for you that hard,” Krysz added. “So, it’s really uplifting to know there are good people in the world who care about other people.”

In addition to funding Christmas gifts, Krysz said she would like to use the money sometime soon in the future to take her children to visit her family in New Jersey and has given some toward another Venmo Challenge started by a friend.

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