Boss, coworkers raise $1,300 to help woman keep long-distance job

Tia Benbow is a hardworking employee at Firestone Complete Auto Care in Columbia, South Carolina, but she was going to have to quit because she could no longer afford her lengthy car commute, her coworkers said.

Her boss and coworkers weren’t going to let that happen, though. They pooled their money to surprise her with $1,300 to help with her finances.
“We’re family, that’s family, that’s what we do,” one of the employees can be heard saying in the background as an overwhelmed Benbow is left speechless, covering her face to hide her tears.
Eric Amos, one of Benbow’s coworkers, caught the emotional moment on camera when their boss, Charlie Brown, handed her the money. The video has racked up nearly 500,000 views in just one day on Facebook.
“To be honest I didn’t even know it was being recorded,” Brown, who employees praised as being “a real hero,” told ABC News. “You always want to be there for your teammates. Knowing the situation she was in, we all decided to pull together.”
Benbow had already moved once to be closer to her job, leaving her son in high school behind with her mother so he wouldn’t have to leave his school's basketball team in the middle of the season.
“I lived in Greeleyville but I recently moved to the Wedgefield area which is a little closer,” she explained. “It was 74 miles one way, but now I’ve cut it down to 30 miles. It would take me about 2 hours.”
Benbow used to work at another Firestone location that was closer to her home, but transferred to the Columbia location due to complications with management.
“When I transferred here I got sick and had to have major surgery done,” she said. “The first surgery was done in January and the second in February and I did not return until the end of April. In the process, with me being out of work and having to take that drive, I did get one vehicle repossessed from me. The second one was in the shop and it was in the process of being repossessed also because I could not afford to get it out of the shop.”

Her fellow employees were in the process of gathering the money to surprise her at the end of the week, but when word got out that she was preparing to put in her two-weeks notice on Wednesday, they decided to do it early.