Every Story Has a Beginning

What could be more natural for a series on The Sociology of Chess (November 2016) than a followup to last month's March Yahoos -- A Viral Story:-

A great story, which was picked up by most major news services, appeared twice in the same Yahoo news feed. The first appearance was a featured story at the top of the feed, captioned, 'Homeless refugee chess champion goes viral'.

This video is from Youtube's 'NBC News - Today' channel.

8-Year-Old Chess Champ And Homeless Refugee Gets Fairytale Ending | TODAY (7:11) • 'Published on Mar 19, 2019'

The description said,

At just 8-years-old, Tani [Tanitoluwa] Adewumi is a chess prodigy – and that’s just part of his remarkable story. The third-grader, who has been living in a homeless shelter with his family, plans to move to an apartment thanks to an incredible crowdfunding effort.

Also appearing in the video are 'Coach Russell' (Russell Makofsky) and 'Coach Shawn' (Shawn Martinez). Tani and his coaches are all wearing blue 'PS 116 NYC' T-shirts. For another inspirational video, see 2019 U.S. Chess Championships: Tanitoluwa "Tani" Adewumi Interview, from the Youtube channel for the Saint Louis Chess Club:-

Grandmaster Maurice Ashley interviews Tani Adewumi, the New York 3rd Grade champion, during Round 10 of the U.S. Championships. Tani has an inspirational story, from a Nigerian refugee to a 1500 rating at eight years old.

The Tani story is reminiscent of the Phiona Mutesi story, last seen on this blog in Queen of Katwe Meets Queen of IMF (April 2017). I'm confident that we haven't seen the last of either story.