Leo Grand Homeless: In a world that’s highly stereotypical, one man with his unique perception stood up and tried to break that stereotype with one simple idea. An idea that in future would become successful and draw a lot of attention towards his aim.
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For months Patrick McConlogue passed by a homeless man living near Hudson river in New York. Everyday passing by he felt a mixture of feelings, empathy with shame for not being able to help him in any way.
His stereotype image of the homeless man broke the day he saw him exercising by lifting boat chains and the very next day he went to him with a choice between 100$ and a free 2 month coding lesson.
Leo Grand, the homeless man in his late twenties chose coding. “I can go through $100 in a few days. In a week,” Leo Grand said. “But he told me I could have a laptop and learn how to do something and I figured it could turn into something more.”
Leo Grand lost his job at MetLife in 2011 and was forced to live on the streets of New York City. But in 2013 things changed when Patrick offered him a choice.
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Grand was given a second hand laptop, 3 JavaScript books and lessons on coding by Patrick for 2 months. For the next two month Leo Grand proved to be an Intelligent person with quick learning skills and hard working spirit.
Leo Grand came out to be a sensitive man with concern for environment and global warming, Together with the help of Patrick, Leo Grand successfully launched an app concerning environment “Trees for Cars”
‘Trees for Cars” was an interesting app which connected two riders who could share a car and as a result reduce CO2 from environment. The app got No.1 on Google Play and was just for $0.99. Leo Grand got $10,000 from the project.
His story is an inspiration as to how tables can be turned, you just have to get rid of stereotype and talk to the man, you never know how you might be able to help. This gave Leo Grand and Patrick fame and they became a hit but it was short lived.
Leo Grand is still homeless living in the same place, he couldn’t land a job and is living through that money everyday bit by bit. When asked why didn’t he continue? He said “Because you know, life, you know. Things going on. You have to do this, you have to do that.” He does hope to bounce back and come up with a more successful app as soon as he sort things out.
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