Touching Glory

I heard a story today about a homeless student who got a scholarship from the new york times and went to Harvard. Te story of her struggle was published in the NYT and people started turning up at the high school she was studying at to give her money and all sorts of gifts.
Why do these people struggle to touch glory by helping people they don’t know just because they have a story in a newspaper?. There are so many people in in the world struggling to reach their dreams. You can go almost anywhere in the world any find children much more desperate.