Unlike your regular busker trying to make ends meet, Will Boyajian offers his guitar-case full of earnings to help meet the ends of struggling New Yorkers.
NYC is place where dreams are madeee of, but is also less romantically the place where the stratification of the rich and poor is apparent. Especially, on the subway.
Between the Times Square and 42nd street platform, he performs solo in an effort to raise money for those who need help. The 26 year old calls his project ‘Hopeful Cases’. It’s his clever alternative to his failed New Years resolution to give a $1 bill to everyone who asked.
Some take $5, some take $40 or $80 but rarely does a single person leave Boyajian’s green velvet casing bare. Dwellers of the big apple “can take as much as they need, but 9 times out of 10 they tell me they want to leave some for others,” he says.
The best days busking are when he “never touches a bill”. Boyajian forgoes the millennial comforts of Netflix, hamburgers and junk.
One man said ‘People don’t know what you can do with ten dollars… it’s two boxes of cereal and milk’ .
Boyajian recounted that on one occasion he just wanted to go home, but he had forty to fifty dollars left to give away. When a homeless man with his puppy came up to shift through the box, Boyajian said…
“Just empty it out man… Treat yourself. And [he said] it’s enough for one of those hotels that let the dogs come and he told the dog ‘Moby, we’re going to be okay.’”
That hit us right in the feels. There is hope for America the world.
Performing for the homeless, Will Boyajian is paying it forward through the #hopefulcases project. More on @ABC7NY pic.twitter.com/S5vDgmrVEz
— AJ Ross (@AJRossABC7) February 22, 2017
