Over $1 Million Raised For Brownsville Students, Thanks To Humans Of New York - Gothamist

Principal Nadia Lopez (Humans of New York Instagram)

Yesterday, Humans of New York's fundraiser for an underprivileged Brooklyn middle school broke $1 million. HONY photographer/documentarian Brandon Stanton wrote, "Thanks to the 34,893 of you who have donated so far. (That's getting close to an Indiegogo record, by the way!) Thanks also to those of you who have been following along, and lending comments of support. I'm so proud of how everyone has rallied around this story, in ways that go so far beyond just raising money."

Two weeks ago, Stanton posted a photograph of a boy, Vidal Chastanet, who said the person who influenced him the most was his principal at Mott Bridges Hall Academy, Nadia Lopez: "When we get in trouble, she doesn't suspend us. She calls us to her office and explains to us how society was built down around us. And 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."

Stanton later met Lopez, to ask how he might help, and they decided to start a fundraiser to send sixth graders to Harvard for a week to see that they can belong to bigger things. Originally, they hoped to raise $100,000, enough to cover three years of field trips. But now, with $1.113 million raised, they have 10 years of Harvard field trips, plus 10 years of summer programs—and then over $300,000 for scholarships, named after Vidal.

The NY Times reports, "It was a heady experience for a school that has little money for extras; its parent association raises only a few hundred dollars a year, compared with the hundreds of thousands of dollars raised for schools in wealthier neighborhoods. When students heard about the Harvard trip, they cheered. 'It will inspire me a lot,' said Isaiah Carrington, 14, who has seen the university only on television. 'Every day, Ms. Lopez tells me, ‘You’re a good scholar,’ and I can be something in life if I have my mind set on it.'"

Here's Vidal talking about his life:

“The buildings are filthy in the housing projects. Some people poop and pee in the hallways. And some of the people around here aren’t friendly. I don’t think it’s a sadness or an anger that they feel, but a sort of emptiness. You look around and see a lot of negative things, and you can’t help but feel like you’re a part of something negative, and that maybe you're something negative. Part of me wants to leave. But part of me wants to stay, because I have a lot of family nearby, and I don’t want to live far away from them.”

A photo posted by Humans of New York (@humansofny) on Jan 27, 2015 at 8:35am PST

There's still 11 days left to the fundraiser.