Sean Kirst tells the story of Xavier Mann, a teenage Buffalo baseball player going to college thanks in part to a scholarship that grew out of a mass shooting tragedy in the city. The scholarship honors a fallen hero of that shooting, and Mann sees his need to give back to his community:

He wants to someday return to Buffalo, a place he describes with love, and help rekindle a passion for baseball in the heart of the city. What Xavier already provides to neighborhood children, said Charlie Wilson, one of the Buffalo founders of that RBI program, is the lesson of sheer presence and example.

“If you can see it,” Wilson said, “you can achieve it.”

Xavier, who will not be 18 until November, has his own version of that perspective.

“It’s about life lessons and opportunities,” he said of baseball, the best way he knows of saying thanks for the great gifts of Aaron Salter.

BuffaloNews.com

Like most Kirst articles, this is well worth your time.