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.
Birth of the Butterfly: Our Inner Fuels for Change and Transformation
The power to change and transform is embedded within us all. We live as creatures of habit, yet change is the constancy that we all share. The energy of our universe vibrates with continuity, connection, and creation. A small change within one of us inevitably sends its ripples to another heart. When we fight against this cosmic flow, we step out of our dance with life, and are left bruised by the inner conflict and gasping for air in a breathless stagnation.
Our nature is to seek comfort on our journey. So when we find it, we stay in our comfort zone -- until we are pushed out, and forced back onto the path of our own evolution. Our continuous growth is an existential essential, and the only thing that propels us forward.
Birth of the Butterfly: Our Inner Fuels for Change and Transformation
We fear change after the warm glow of the well-known because it is intangible, something we cannot grip or physically touch. How can we trust something that is unapparent and ambiguous? When we lack trust from within, it naturally filters through, leaving us suspicious, afraid and uncomfortable. And yet, the beauty of life is the very mystery and wonder it keeps.
We have programmed ourselves to sit cocooned in the closet of comfort, preferring to cling to the falsity of the familiar rather than brave the power of possibility. For progress and growth, a deep awakening must often be forced upon us, through a painful occurrence or an inner upheaval and despair. Or an inner desire pushes us to finally emerge into the new, because the fear of staying rooted to the habitual overtakes the one for change -- inspiring us to finally and graciously break free of our cocoons.
Our catalysts and agents for change
We need to be moved quite harshly to be liberated from old habits and behaviors; inner turmoil and despondency prompt us to retreat and rediscover our innate power for reinvention. Our seeds of potential are not sewn in tight spaces; they are frequently found in shadowy open lands, hidden from light and elusively awaiting discovery. Transformation creates confusion and upset, distress and agitation, because a re-birth requires a great unsettling and an exit from what once was.
Life’s change agents act as catalysts for the shifts that are often much needed in our lives. Pain, loss, deep-seated fears, heartbreak, tough times and challenges serve to destabilize our foundations, ripping the comfort from our bones and sparking the light of transformation from deep within. It is only through an inner death, a finality to a certain way of being, that we are pushed toward a new way forward.
When we dull the echo of the inner voice that calls us to evolve and reach for new ground, we only encourage a more forceful push from the universe in some way. Catalysts are exertions and inner magnifications of desperation that knock us down, so we can better learn to fly.
Embracing our dance with life
When we anchor our thoughts, keeping them fixed and immutable, it whittles away our sense of openness, both in mind and heart. Our fear of change disrupts our need for movement and enrichment from new experiences. We move out of life’s dance when we remain rutted in thoughts and behaviors that are neither enlightening nor progressive. It is an inner struggle we all face, yet one that we can adapt to and flow with rather than battle against.
When we observe and liberate our thoughts we can adjust and amplify our mindset to one that does not lock us out of the fresh and unknown, but instead allows us to embrace it. Rather than fight against our challenges we can patiently and fervently guide ourselves through them. When we trust in ourselves we engage with the strength we have within; it becomes our backbone for fortifying our intuitive processes in alignment with a heightened sense of our inner being. Through an enhanced awareness of our transient nature we immerse ourselves into life’s beauty of continuity and rhythm.
The butterfly: a symbol of transformation
Butterflies are a symbol of transformation, joy and originality -- no two sets of butterfly wings are ever the same. They sweep into sun-soaked skies and swirl around petals of vibrant colors, moving swiftly from one to the next as they trust in their dance with beauty. Butterflies are the masters of metamorphosis and adaptability, facilitating change so that life continues. The caterpillar cocooned into her chrysalis does not fight to break the shell or resist her growth. She implicitly trusts in her own inherent timing and continuity of being. Only emerging free when her wings are strong enough to fly; out of the shell breaks the beautiful butterfly.
Butterflies teach us to seek our own flexibility and flow with life. To paint new pictures, brush stroke by brush stroke. We can understand that true beauty lies in our own unique reflection, and that through wakefulness emanates our natural pattern of existence. Just as the butterfly, we can gracefully acknowledge that change is necessary for unravelling our blossom of riches.
Birth of the butterfly
Chaos and conflict create the chemistry for transformation and propel an exodus of the inessential from our lives. We can choose to lace ourselves with a patient and unswerving trust that the new will bring growth and value to our journey. We learn and understand that the time of the faithful caterpillar expires only for the elegance and wonder of a butterfly’s wings to unfold -- transparent and assertive in its individuality, and dynamic in its new-found freedom.