James Kellogg has spent years surprising strangers — at Walmarts, at laundromats, wherever he happens to be — by handing them hundreds or thousands of dollars, usually after they’ve shown him some small kindness first. Online, he goes by Jimmy Darts, and the approach has built him an audience most creators only dream of: 28 million followers, and roughly $6 million raised for people who had no idea the cameras were rolling when their day changed.
This year, some of that attention turned back on him.
Kellogg, who’s from Walker, Minnesota, appeared on CNN’s “Independence Eve” broadcast as part of the network’s coverage celebrating America’s 250th anniversary, alongside hosts Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen. After spotlighting his work on air, the hosts asked to follow him back home to Minnesota for the Fourth of July — where Kellogg had one surprise of his own planned.
His grandmother had been watching him on live television from her nursing home. Kellogg arranged to visit her in person that same day, turning what had started as a national broadcast segment into a private, unfilmed-for-clicks moment between a grandson and the family member who’d likely watched him grow into the person doing all this giving in the first place.
**The math behind the videos**
It’s easy to watch clips of strangers bursting into tears over an envelope of cash and assume it’s a one-off gimmick. The scale says otherwise: years of consistent videos, real recipients, and a running total in the millions of dollars that keeps climbing. Kellogg’s format rarely changes — approach someone, offer a small kindness, wait to see if it’s returned, and if it is, change their day in a way they didn’t see coming.
What made this particular week different wasn’t the strangers. It was the reminder that the person behind millions of dollars in surprises has his own grandmother, in a nursing home, still waiting for him to come home.
*This article is based on reporting by the Star Tribune and CNN. Read the original report [here](https://www.startribune.com/minnesota-native-raises-millions-online-through-random-acts-of-kindness/601864999).*
Photo by HowardLake, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.