Tweet on spare change generates big money for virus aid

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Andy Larsen is a sports writer, but with so many games scratched during the pandemic he has spent a lot of time digging into coronavirus data and its sobering implications.

Then on Monday, while he was sorting his spare change — some from a childhood piggy bank shaped like SpongeBob SquarePants — it struck him: Other people in Utah could use the money more than he could.

His composed a tweet to his nearly 27,000 followers, hoping to quickly find someone who could use the $165.84.

Within a minute, someone offered to essentially double his donation with a deposit into his Venmo account. Then someone else pitched in, and another. It kept snowballing as Utah Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox retweeted it, calling the effort “very cool.”

“I figured I would help a couple families with Thanksgiving, or a family with three kids buy Christmas presents,” said the 29-year-old Larsen, who covers the NBA’s Utah Jazz for the Salt Lake Tribune. “I was shocked ... within five, 10 minutes we got $1,000."

By Wednesday, he had collected more than $52,000.

Among the first to get on board was Jeff Jones, a 54-year-old partner at a CPA firm in South Jordan.

“I was thinking, ‘We’re not having a big Thanksgiving dinner this year, I can use some of the money we would have spent to hopefully help some other people,’” he said.

With the pandemic keeping people from getting together in a big way for the holiday, the online effort became a chance to conjure a sense of community, a feeling of being part of something larger.

“It felt like it took on a life of its own," Jones said. “Man, it's sure been fun to be a part of it."

Larsen also heard from people in need. There was someone who got COVID-19 and couldn’t work for a month, possibly putting Christmas...