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Stranger's Video Helps Grandma Selling Baked Goods Go Viral
Elderly Woman Sells Homemade Pies and Cakes
Inez has been setting up shop outside her local grocery store since November 2018, frequently rising at midnight to start baking. Her specialties include pecan pie, sweet potato pie, pineapple pound cake, and red velvet cake with cream cheese icing.
Recently, Lakelander resident, Mannie (who posts on TikTok as @mannierants), came across Inez selling her cakes in the blistering Florida heat.
In a now-viral video, Mannie zooms in on her small business, consisting of a tray table and footstool draped in white tablecloths and covered in baked goods.
"I love sweet potato pie. I would like to get two," the TikToker tells her.
Mannie starts counting out the money...and doesn't stop...completely emptying his wallet as Inez cries with gratitude.
"I don't know what your challenge is. I wish I had more, I wish I had more. I want this to be bigger for you. I want more people to come and support you, I really do."
- Mannie told Inez
However, Mannie didn't just wish it; the TikToker did something about it, putting a call out on social media.
"I don't know her, neither her situation," the text overlay reads. "But my heart says she needs our support. If you're able to please stop by if you're in Lakeland Fl. It will be greatly appreciated."
Mannie tells Fox13 News that he wasn't looking for fame. He just wanted to help a grandma out and support local.
“That’s the main reason why I made it. Not to go viral for social media purposes. I just wanted local people to support each other because that’s the best rewarding experience."
A TikTok Video Goes Viral
73-year-old Inez Hudson sets up shop outside a local Lakeland grocery store to raise money so she can support herself.
Fox13 News
It worked! Mannie's post took off, garnering more than 800,000 views and nearly 6,000 comments.
"That cry broke my heart. I can't stand to see our elderly forced to worry how to make ends instead of enjoying their latter years😢🙏❤❤"
"We’re coming GRANNY🤗🤗🤗🤗💖💖💖💖🖤🖤"
"Im in Orlando! Momma we will be there soon ❤️"
"She's so grateful 🙏 I'm from tampa im coming 2 support."
People from all over the area, and even beyond, started making the trip to Super Choice Foods to buy Inez's baked goods. And they keep on coming.
Her long-time friends are beyond thrilled for her as they know how tough it's been financially.
"I shared with her, God said, ‘stop worrying.' Trust Him and he's going to make things go to where you're not going to have to stress," said one friend, Jamie Overstreet. "Gradually, more people are coming, and to hear it's going viral, ah! That's so exciting!"
Now the only thing Inez has to worry about is selling out.
While the elderly woman is excited about the uptick in customers, she does admit her newfound fame makes her a bit nervous. Overall, however, she's ecstatic that all of her hard work is paying off.
"It makes me feel happy because I've been doing this for so long and it's something I've always wanted to do."
- Inez Hudson
Supporting Local Business
Inez joins a growing number of seniors who can no longer afford to live off their fixed incomes. According to the Pew Research Center, the older workforce has nearly quadrupled in size since the mid-1980s, equating to roughly 11 million people.
As inflation continues to hammer the country and the cost of housing skyrockets, more and more people who should be enjoying their retirement are forced to continue working.
It's also why supporting local businesses and the "little guy" is so important. Buying local ensures that our money goes to the people who need it most, rather than to huge corporations that value profits over people.
When we choose to buy from small, independent sellers we are directly contributing to the livelihoods of our neighbors and friends. So next time you're deciding where to spend your money, consider businesses like Inez's.
Your support could be the difference between struggle and success.
You Are Love: Reclaiming the Force and Beauty of Your Vulnerability
The truth of love lies in its purity and limitlessness. Love in its highest octave is a surging wave of strength; an undisguised energy that wears no masks, sees no barriers, and runs toward a call of need while everything else runs away. This is the love that is finely woven within us all. Every cell of our being is forged with a deep-seated urge to feel and give love, from our birth to death. Love shapes our entire spiritual and physical design; it is undeniable and fortuitous -- a chemistry of hope, creativity, acceptance and great passion.
Love illustrates to us the depth of who we are at our most fragile yet fearless. Love says that we are stronger and not weaker through her light. We can only love others with the same fibres of love that we have nurtured heroically from within, and so our love for self inspires us to love others with the same wholeheartedness. Hearts connect through an open dialogue of truth and authenticity, and we can only ask of love no more or less than we are first willing to give.
You Are Love: Reclaiming the Force and Beauty of Your Vulnerability
Love uncovers what fear attempts to hide away. Its essence resides in the distinct openness and giving space of our vulnerability -- the site of our most intrinsic strength. When we deny our vulnerability, we forsake ourselves. When we hide from love, we ultimately mask ourselves, and in that same obscurity inadvertently suppress all our gifts and inner treasures. Love needs an illuminating nakedness, a total stripping away of every fearful layer and veil of faintheartedness. How can we ask that love wraps us in her arms when we do not at first dare to expose her from our own darkness and fear to be seen? When we reveal ourselves to love, love unconditionally shows up.
The mechanics of our heart
Our hearts are configured to our own electro-magnetic rhythm and resonance. Hearts collide, feel and connect through an honest and tenacious exchange of higher love. Some may say that to love so openly is to show weakness, yet the infinite depth of a boundless love is the greatest measure of strength. Our elemental fragility is a bestowal we all carry -- it is the trademark of our humanity. When we shut down that inner brilliance as if it were a broken piece of our heart's engine, we lock ourselves out of life and every worthwhile experience that stems from it.
A locked out heart does not take chances, fight for dreams, or breathe in the wonders of living. Life essentially comes to a half-hearted halt. Fear casts an anxious shadow over our heart-space while love beams its amorous rays, and trust guides us through while suspicion keeps us asking questions. When we realize the capacity of our heart's true call, then we gain an idea of our vital inner strength and unique impression on all that we touch... and all that has the courage to touch us back.
Attachments to past wounds and old hurts
We deny our heart when we hold on to past wounds and the specters of old pain, some of which we may have never really recovered from. That inner pain erects another layer over the source of our vulnerability; it creates a sharper edge over what was once softer and imbued with love. The fears that we all feel at being exposed arise like scaffolding from the base of our being and cut right through the center of our heart. We allow fears and old ghosts to set up home in our space that was always intended as love's abundant abode.
We lose the truth of love when we encourage what has hurt us to overstay its welcome. When we cling to historic pain, it only tightens its grip on our heart. Our pain does not need our protection, it simply needs our love. When we patiently sift through inner anguish and weeping wounds, we can direct them to an exit point of rest and release. We move back to the nakedness of our soul when we can begin to peel back each layer of upset from every sword that left its mark. Liberating old wounds helps us find a pathway back to our heart's true north.
Being a heart-led human
Our mind will always channel fear and foreboding into our mind-space as a means of protection from us disclosing too much of our heart. Yet to refind the reality of love, we can swim towards an openness that we experienced before we felt heartbreak, betrayal, manipulation, and emotional weariness. We can reach that place of valiant vulnerability when we revert back to the loving intention we hold within; one that is resilient and mighty; electric and compelling.
We find revelation when we strip back our fears and tainted illusions. We are guided by our heart-led compass when we consciously rediscover each part of our intuitive tenderness. It is the love within us that flows like water, breathes in the newest air, and embraces each nuance and seemingly imperfect part of who we are. To know love, we must first be love -- unafraid, devoted and assured.
The beauty of vulnerability
As adventure-driven children, we innately knew love's value, and loved fearlessly, with our hearts wide open. We understood that its magic is free and expansive, with an all-consuming yearning that remains tucked away within us all; our fine blueprint.
Search for the blueprint by first acknowledging that it exists. We redefine love by being the most authentic expression and mirror of it -- propelled from within, with a velvety warmth that is intensely strong, yet exquisitely soft.
For more inspirational messages, check out theselove quotes