NEW YORK: It began as a heart-warming photograph of a New York school boy that went viral. Now an online fund has raised $1.2 million to send him and his classmates to Harvard.
When Vidal Chastanet, 13, bumped into photographer Brandon Stanton in one of the most troubled neighborhoods in New York, neither had no idea what would happen next.
Stanton runs a wildly popular blog with 12 million Facebook followers that profiles pictures of ordinary New Yorkers and captions them with a short quote summing up their life.
He featured Vidal dressed in a black hoodie and suppressing a smile, with an inspiring quote saying that school principal, Nadia Lopez, was the person who most influenced him.
"She tells us that each time somebody fails out of school, a new jail cell gets built. And one time she made every student stand up, one at a time, and she told each one of us that we matter," he said.
Stanton was so intrigued he went to meet Lopez and started profiling staff and students at Mott Hill Bridges Academy in Brownsville, the neighborhood with soaring crime rates.
Lopez spoke of her dream of taking her deprived pupils to visit Harvard, one of America's most prestigious universities, to encourage them to think big and broaden their horizons.
To fulfill that vision, they set up an online fundraising appeal on January 22, which has now raised more than $1.2 million.
The money raised will go towards Harvard trips and a scholarship fund for graduates, with Vidal to be the first recipient.
Until Vidal spoke out, Lopez said she had been on the verge of quitting, burnt out after four years as principal of a school where she feared she was struggling to make a difference.
"I'm going to be very honest, up until this moment I didn't know I mattered, I didn't know that anybody cared what I was doing," NBC filmed her telling students at the school.
The story has generated massive media interest, culminating with Vidal, Lopez and Stanton being flown to Los Angeles to appear on popular "The Ellen DeGeneres Show."
DeGeneres said that discount retailer Target would outfit every classroom at the academy with state-of-the-art technology and give grants to other schools in the community totalling $100,000.
"The outpouring of individuals around the world, speaks volumes. It's about those children," Lopez told Ellen.
"The response has been unbelievable," said Stanton.
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