Curiosity + Serendipity + Outrage + Kindness = A Life Changed

I've always liked working with interns. Even when they don't report to me, I try to find out a little about their lives. There are two high-school-aged interns in the office and on Tuesday I finally had the chance to chat with them. One was quite excited about going off to college. She'd be leaving for Georgia in three weeks, and we spoke a bit about the differences she might experience between the south and her life in NYC. A few minutes later, she timidly turned to me to ask if I knew anything about private college loans.

She showed me her financial aid package--a huge honors scholarship, various grants, Stafford loans, and a waiver that covered her health insurance on campus. She had a balance of $3,860 for the semester. She didn't have it. She had a week to come up with it and two weeks prior, her dad gave her the bad news that there was no way the family could help--they couldn't even qualify for a loan.

This young woman was an honors student from the South Bronx, the child of Vietnamese immigrants, the first to attend college in her entire extended family. She was graduating from a specialty NYC high school; she spent more than two hours a day commuting for this education and she didn't take it for granted. Being poor wasn't her fault. Her mom works at a nail salon. Her dad has a job doing outdoor labor and maintenance in a NYC park--a job he got after being unemployed for a while. He's never been able to secure a credit card. All that stood between this young woman and college was $3,860.

At that moment, all I could do is give her a pep talk and coach her through the art of badgering the financial aid office before she tried for private loans. I talked to her about my own experience, calling every single day until I found a sympathetic soul in financial aid who helped me. My gap was $2,000. But when you don't have it and you don't have access to money, it might as well be $2 million.

Later that night, I checked Twitter before bedtime. The Department of Justice was set to investigate what it called discrimination in college admissions against whites. I decided to reply and tell the intern's story. I didn't realize at first whose post I was replying to--nor did I expect even 1% of what happened next. You can see the thread below...

At some point later, several people suggested the intern start a GoFundMe page. And perhaps by now you know whose Tweet I replied to--Shannon Coulter, co-founder of #GrabYourWallet. She nudged me to get the intern, Anna, to start a page, and said she'd share it with her community. I felt a mix of excitement and dread--I'd shared Anna's story without asking.

I took her for coffee the next morning and explained the whole thing. She was reluctant. She didn't think many people, strangers, would respond and she was worried about the haters, namely that people would see she has an iPhone and tell her if she can afford that, she should have saved for college. Ignore them, I told her. I'm a stranger and I care. I explained that for many people, there's joy in doing for others, in helping others. She'd accomplished so much already, she was so close. If the effort failed, she was not going to be any worse off.

She set up the page, asking for enough to cover the first year, promising to pay it forward, and to take on part-time work to pay for books, living expenses and to help fund her future college years. Within 2 hours of the campaign's launch, she'd received over 100 small donations that pushed her about $2,000. She left her desk and cried in the bathroom. When she came out she could barely speak. She was so grateful, so shocked that so many strangers would give so she could go to college.

As of this afternoon, 24 hours later, she's near $5,800--less than $2,000 away from covering her remaining entire freshman year bill. People, I told her, will turn their outrage and sadness at things they feel they can't control (eg, goings-on in Washington, D.C.), into kindness and action when they can. One person can't do much, but a lot of people, doing small things, can do an awful lot.

I don't know if that's the only lesson here, but it's a big one. For me, there's another lesson--from an email I sent to Anna late last night:

You have reminded me of something important: 

It only takes a minute to discover someone's 
?story and ?to c?are. 

??There's power in caring, in curiosity.

As for what to do about the Anna's in this world... what do you think we can do to make sure that $3,860--or whatever figure--isn't what keeps them from college?