In 2017, when a little boy named Tani Adewumi was just 7 years old, his family fled violence in Nigeria and eventually settled in a homeless shelter in New York.
His parents enrolled him and his brother in a nearby public school that had an active chess club and Tani wanted to join. His mother couldn’t afford the $330 chess club fee so the coaches waived it for the family.
He made headlines when he won the New York State chess championship at the age of 8, after only a year of practicing.
His chess coach had set up a GoFundMe following the boy's win, which got his family into an apartment and out of a homeless shelter. After just 10 days the GoFundMe page raised more than $250,000. How sweet is this, an anonymous donor offered to pay the families rent on an apartment for one whole year.
He then entered an in-person tournament in Connecticut open to advanced players of all ages and won every game making him a national chess master.
"I want to be the youngest grandmaster," he told The New York Times. "I want to have it when I'm 11 or 12."