A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words

In 2010, self-taught photographer Brandon Stanton set out to create his blog, Humans of New York (HONY), with simple intentions: to photograph around 10,000 New Yorkers and plot their photos on a map. But five years, one book, and over 14 million followers (on Facebook, Instagram, and Tumblr) later, Stanton is doing more than just sharing stories - he's changing lives.

It all started on January 19th when Brandon photographed Vidal, a 14 year old boy from Brownsville, Brooklyn:

Even just hearing what Vidal said about Ms. Lopez, Stanton was inspired (and clearly, by the number of likes on this photo, many others were too). He decided he would look into Vidal's school, Mott Hall Bridges Academy (MHBA), a school situated in an area with one of the worst crime rates of NYC.

Upon photographing and interviewing Ms. Lopez (image below), Stanton learned of a plan that she had been trying to put in place, but was unable to due to insufficient funding. Ms. Lopez's goal was to send a select number of her sixth grade class to visit Harvard University, something that could have a tremendous impact considering many of the scholars have never left their small region of NYC. In an effort to help out a principal and school that clearly deserves it, Stanton set up the Vidal Scholarship Fund on the popular crowd funding website Indiegogo. And the response was overwhelming. In only 45 minutes, the scholarship reached its initial goal of $100,000 and now, just over a week later (and still over a week left), it has surpassed one million dollars.

In an update, Stanton revealed that because of the massive amount of donations, MHBA will be able to send its entire sixth grade class to visit Harvard for the next ten years.

The impact that Stanton has had on this community is unimaginable, especially since it all started with a single picture. But all of the recognition must go to the amazing teachers and administrators at MHBA. Despite all of the obstacles they face, they have worked as hard as they could to make sure that their scholars get the same level of education and the same treatment that students in any other school in any other neighborhood would receive. It's obvious that this kind of event doesn't and can't happen often, but the fact that it is going to a school with such inspiring leaders and scholars is all the better. Hopefully, other inner-city schools across the country will find their HONY and be able to reach their full potentials, just like MHBA.

Ms. Lopez's First Portrait: 

Keep up with the Vidal Scholarship Fund here.