Isaiah Márquez-Greene, a survivor of the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting, got the surprise of a lifetime when he went to a New York Rangers game and met one of his favorite players. Márquez-Greene knew he was going to receive a jersey from Rangers captain, Jacob Trouba, at the game. But what he didn’t expect was for Trouba to present him with a scholarship for law school.
Márquez-Greene, lost his sister Ana, who died in the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting at age 6. Now 18, he is getting ready to attend the University of Connecticut and had already been accepted into the school’s special law program. In a video from the game, Márquez-Greene met Trouba on the ice and shared that he’s been a fan of the hockey star since he played for the Winnipeg Jets.
After signing his jersey, Trouba invited him to sit on the Rangers bench. Calling him an “amazing human,” Trouba shared that he knows Márquez-Greene’s story and asked the incoming freshman what he wants to do in the future. After Márquez-Greene responded that he wants to be a lawyer, Trouba handed him a certificate.
“This is for you,” he said. “It’s from the Garden of Dreams. It’s a scholarship for law school.” “No way,” Márquez-Greene responded. Trouba continued, “You’re going to graduate from college, you’re going to go to law school and you’re going to have no debt coming out of school. You deserve it, man” he said. After the pair took a picture together, Trouba gave Márquez-Greene his number and told him he wanted to check in with him when he goes to college next year.
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Ten year old Olive Wallace comes from a musical family. Her grandmother is a retired Californian music teacher. Olive’s aunt also teaches music. Olive herself is a musician and plays two instruments- the violin and the clarinet. The fifth grader sings in her school’s choir and honor choir at Avon Grove Intermediate School.
Her mother Michelle Wallace says her daughter sketched out her first musical composition in pencil. When Olive shared the composition she had written with her mom, Michelle shared it with the TikTok community. “So my 10-year-old daughter wrote this,” Michelle explained in a TikTok video. “Could somebody play this? I need to know — I need to know if it’s any good or if it makes any sense.”
Days later, the musical piece went viral with musicians and orchestras worldwide. Musicians from all over the world shared recordings of themselves playing variations of Wallace’s song on social media. She was able to hear her music played on the guitar, the piano and the harp, as well as performed by string orchestras comprised of music instructors and middle school students. Six million views later, the composition had been played and shared by hundreds of TikTok musicians, including well-known professionals, and was turned into a full string orchestral arrangement.
“I never in a million years would have expected this to happen,I’m blown away by how many people put their time into that, it was just really amazing and beautiful,” Olive said. “I’m happy it reached so many people and brought so many people joy, I think that’s what music does for people,” she added. Olive hopes her music inspires others to pursue their love for music.
AGIS orchestra teacher Emily Lucas described Wallace as “always creative and imaginative.” She said other students at AGIS think the media attention is awesome and some have even asked Wallace for her autograph. Lucas added that she doesn’t think anyone was necessarily surprised by the response, simply because of how creative Wallace is every day. “If this type of thing was going to happen to anybody in the school it would be Olive, and Olive’s mom would be the person to make it happen,” said Lucas.
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In 2018, a homeless man found a check for $10k and his only thoughts were returning it to its rightful owner. Because of his good deed, he was rewarded with a chance at a whole new life. Elmer Alvarez had been living on the streets of New Haven, CT for several years battling addiction. The unexpected death of his brother from a heart attack spurred him into a dark spiral of addiction and crime.
Having finally kicked his addiction, he never considered keeping the check despite still living on the streets. Alvarez said “It never crossed my mind because I made a decision to turn my life over. I’d been clean for three years. I was just thinking about how that person was feeling by losing an amount of a check like that, an amount of money like that. I’d be feeling kind of desperate.” It turns out that the check belonged to real-estate broker Roberta Hoskie.
Luckily for Elmer, Roberta was full of compassion for his situation due to her own experience with homelessness as a teenage mother. “He didn’t know whose name was on the check, he didn’t know that at one point I was a single mother, I was at one point on welfare, and at one point found myself homeless” Hoskie said.
She offered him a reward for returning the check, which brought tears to Elmer’s eyes. Roberta also offered Elmer a place to live, paying his rent for seven months, and had him attend her real estate school for free. Hoskie said she was in awe of his actions. “There needs to be more people like Elmer Alvarez, he’s a golden heart guy, he’s a phenomenal guy.”
Years later, Alvarez is able to support himself as a realtor and is on the board of directors of Outreach Foundation, a non-profit Hoskie started to help with housing and resources for homeless teens and young adults. Hoskie also wrote a book- “Poverty Curse Broken: The Roberta Hoskie Story” with the hopes of inspiring others to break the poverty cycle.
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