"No one truly knows what is possible until they go and do it!"

To ensure that she would not miss more than one day of school, Liz Murray scheduled three interviews in one day: the welfare office, Harvard, and The New York Times! The only one of these interviews that did not go well? You guessed it: the welfare office. The surly welfare caseworker mocked her and told her she was not eligible.

But, as the day progressed, so did her luck in interviews. The interview for admission into Harvard, and the interview for a scholarship from The New York Times went extremely well. As Liz writes in her memoir Breaking Night, "No one truly knows what is possible, until they go and do it!"

A week later she received a phone call from The New York Times telling her she was one of six scholarship winners. When her picture and story appeared in the paper, she received generous support from many people. One group of people paid the back rent owed by Liz, her friend Samantha, and her sister Lisa. Liz had used all her savings from a summer job to pay the deposit on the apartment, and things needed for living in the apartment, and the agreement was that Lisa would pay the rent from her job at The Gap. However, the day after they moved in, Lisa lost her job! Thus, the appointment at the welfare office.

After the outpouring of support engendered by the Times story, Liz Murray never again spent a night homeless.