Screencap of Karen Klein and Max Sidarov by Flickr user k-ideas 

Today, in a ceremony in Toronto, local Max Sidarov presented a cheque for $703,833 to Karen Klein. In late June 2012, the sixty-eight-year-old Klein was bullied by a group seventh graders while working as a bus monitor for the state of New York. The group of boys that bullied Klein decided to film the encounter with one of their cellphone cameras and upload the resulting video to Youtube. Sidarov, a Toronto resident, saw the video and decided to help Klein. Using fundraising site Indiegogo, Sidarov intended to raise $5,000 for Klein to take a vacation, but after the video went viral — more than two million people saw the video — nearly 30,000 people from 83 countries decided to help. All told, Sidarov managed to raise $703,833. Since the incident, Klein has retired, but she now plans to use the money given to her to start an anti-bullying fund. [Associated Press]

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Igor Bonifacic is a simple intern working for the Toronto Standard. You can troll him on twitter at @igorbonifacic. 

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