After returning home Tuesday evening from a day's work of selling ice cream on his tricycle, 81-year-old Juan Martinez, also known as Don Juan, was robbed at gunpoint in front of his Stockton home.
His assailants, a man and woman, took all the money he had made for the day and fled the scene in a white sedan, police said.
When Mayra Iniguez, 25, found out that her neighbor and long-time family friend had been stripped of his cash, she pondered how to raise money for him.
She decided to set up a GoFundMe account set at a goal of $450 to help the street vendor make up for his lost $300, but the community rapidly raised over $5,000 for Martinez in a day.
"My goal was to get the money that they took from him, because those $300 is what he uses through the week," Iniguez said.
She said she felt bad and wanted to help in any possible way she could.
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