A Cuban resident in Miami donated 150,000 Cuban pesos in cash to a mother accompanying her sick son in a hospital in Cuba, in a gesture of solidarity that went viral on TikTok last Sunday and moved thousands of people.
The video, published by Ernesto Pérez on his account @ernestoperez_80, captures the exact moment when the bills are counted out loud —in increments of 30,000 pesos— as the woman breaks down in tears.
"Thirty thousand, forty thousand, fifty thousand... one hundred fifty thousand pesos in cash we are handing over here to the mother," Pérez can be heard saying during the delivery, before asking the woman not to cry: "None of this makes up for the health of your son."
The mother, visibly moved, thanked everyone who contributed without mentioning individual names, as she explained, there were too many people who helped.
"From the heart, I tell you, may God multiply it for you, may He triple it, and may you continue helping more people in need," the woman expressed.
Upon saying goodbye, he added: "I won't mention anyone because there are too many people, so that no one feels bad. Thank you to everyone who helped. If you helped, feel good in your heart."
This is not the first act of solidarity from Ernesto Pérez towards Cuban families in distress. In April 2026, he donated 15,000 pesos to the mother of a young woman from Guantánamo who could not walk, a sum that came from his early earnings in TikTok LIVE battles. This new donation, ten times larger, reflects the growth of his community and its mobilization capacity.
The video garnered over 276,000 views and 35,500 likes within a few hours, becoming one of the most recent examples of a growing phenomenon on social media: Cubans in the diaspora organizing digital fundraisers to alleviate the health crisis on the Island.
In response to that collapse, organized solidarity on social media has become an informal yet growing support network. In July, a campaign on Facebook raised more than 500,000 pesos for a child with cerebral palsy, and another collection surpassed 305,000 pesos in just 36 hours for a teenager from Havana with the same condition.
The Minister of Health himself, José Ángel Portal Miranda, admitted in 2026 that the Cuban healthcare system was "on the brink of collapse," while the solidarity among Cubans—both on and off the Island—remains, for many families, the only network that has not failed.
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