The Chantwan video is the single biggest moment in MDMotivator's recent history, but it's far from the only one that mattered. In the year and a half between early 2025 and spring 2026, Zachery Dereniowski produced four other story arcs that each crossed into mainstream news coverage, raised five or six figures on Slingshot, and reminded fans of why this work hits the way it does.

Each of these stories deserves its own deep dive — and a few of them get one elsewhere in our series. This article walks through all four together, because together they show the pattern.

Ronke — Ontario, March 2025

A 24-year-old Nigerian mother of twin infants, surviving in Ontario with almost no support system. According to coverage by Good Good Good in March 2025, Zachery approached Ronke in a Dollar Store and asked if she could spare $2 — to buy a soother for a baby he claimed was crying at home.

She didn't have much. She gave him the change anyway.

What unfolded next, in the conversation that followed, made the moment go viral. Ronke was studying International Business and Management Logistics. She had moved from Nigeria to Canada to pursue higher education, and had since had her life pulled apart by circumstance. Her husband's visa to Canada had been denied. Her pregnancy with twins had medical complications that nearly killed her, leaving her hospitalized for over a month. While she was recovering, her mother passed away in Nigeria. By the time Zachery met her in the Dollar Store, she was raising her sons David and Daniel essentially alone — staying in a guest room in a neighbor's home from her church, with no place of her own.

When Zachery tried to give her the $2 back, she refused, telling him God would provide.

Zachery launched a Slingshot fundraiser in Ronke's name to cover her living expenses. According to Good Good Good's reporting, the campaign raised more than $84,000.

The thing that made Ronke's story unique among MDMotivator's 2025 campaigns was the sheer asymmetry of what she was choosing in that moment. She had genuinely nothing to spare. She gave anyway. The internet noticed.

Denise — Detroit, April 2026

A 56-year-old single mother and grandmother in Detroit, working to keep her family afloat while struggling financially herself. According to MDMotivator's own video description for the campaign, Zachery sat on 8 Mile in the pouring rain, outside a pawn shop, blindfolded and pretending to be in distress.

Most people walked past. Some stared. Some hesitated and kept moving.

Denise stopped.

She had come to the pawn shop that day to pay a bill. She didn't have extra money. But she sat with Zachery, made sure he was okay, and listened. Then she went back to her car, grabbed a jacket so he wouldn't be cold, and gave him her last $2.

Zachery surprised her on the spot with $1,000 in cash. But the real story unfolded a few days later, when Denise was asked to come back to the same pawn shop under the impression of just catching up.

What she walked into was a follow-up surprise that involved Detroit rapper Big Sean, the Detroit Pistons organization, and Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield — who had been sworn in earlier that year as the first woman ever elected mayor of the city. The Slingshot campaign that ran in Denise's name raised approximately $100,000.

The Denise video also marked one of MDMotivator's more visible sponsor integrations of the period, with iMerchant prominently credited as a major sponsor for the production. It was an early example of how Zachery's growing brand partnerships were being woven directly into specific giving campaigns rather than running as separate ad reads.

Elvin — Austin, April 2026

This story is significant enough that we cover it in full in its own dedicated article. The short version:

Zachery sat outside an Austin grocery store, blindfolded, with a birthday cake. The setup was simple: who would stop for a stranger sitting alone with a cake on his birthday?

A father and grandfather named Elvin stopped. He took the time to talk. He went into the store, bought a balloon and a card, slipped his own money into the card, came back out, sang Happy Birthday, and prayed for a complete stranger.

His own backstory, as he opened up to Zachery, made the moment more meaningful. Elvin had moved from Puerto Rico to Austin with nothing after losing both his parents to drug use. He had once started a trucking business in pursuit of a better future for his family, but had been forced to shut it down due to financial pressures, and now worked at a hospital to make ends meet.

The follow-up surprise included KIND Snacks founder and Shark Tank investor Daniel Lubetzky, a longstanding supporter of MDMotivator's work. The Slingshot campaign raised over $200,000 for Elvin and his family.

It is, as of this writing, the largest single-recipient Slingshot total MDMotivator has publicly reported.

Alma — April 2026

A more recent story, and one of the more high-profile celebrity collaborations to come out of the MDMotivator project in 2026.

According to the video description on mdmotivator.com, Zachery walked outside a store with no shoes on and no plan, simply waiting to see who would stop. Alma stopped — even while dealing with her own personal loss, she paused to make sure he was okay.

The follow-up surprise was orchestrated with actor and producer Taraji P. Henson, a prominent and long-time mental health advocate through her Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation. Alma was invited to what she thought would be a normal day at a hair salon. What was waiting for her instead was a $50,000 surprise plus access to Taraji's full haircare line.

The framing of the Alma video, as Zachery laid it out in the description, was about giving back to people who keep giving even when they're carrying their own heavy stuff. It's a thread that runs through nearly every major MDMotivator story: the people most willing to stop for strangers tend to be the ones already going through the most.

The Common Thread

Lay these four stories side by side and the pattern is unmistakable.

Each subject was already giving, in some form, before the camera caught them. Ronke handed over money she didn't really have. Denise gave her jacket and her last $2 in the rain. Elvin spent his own money on a card and a balloon for a complete stranger. Alma stopped despite carrying her own grief.

That's the test built into every MDMotivator setup. The video doesn't reward strangers for being lucky. It rewards them for being kind first. The amount of money that ends up in the recipient's hands is meant to be a multiplier of something they already showed.

The framing matters because it answers a question fans sometimes ask: why these specific people? The answer, consistently across these four stories, is that they're not selected for spectacle. They're selected because they passed a quiet test that most people walking by didn't.

A Note on Numbers

The dollar figures cited in this article — $84,000 for Ronke, $100,000 for Denise, $200,000+ for Elvin, $50,000 for Alma — come from third-party news coverage and from MDMotivator's own video descriptions and Slingshot campaign pages. They reflect amounts reported at or near the time of each campaign and may have continued to grow afterward as donations trickled in. These should be considered floor numbers, not ceilings.

Coming Up Next

Each of these stories deserves its own full treatment. Our next two articles do exactly that — first with a deep dive on the $200K Elvin story and the role Daniel Lubetzky played, and then with the Detroit pawn shop video that introduced fans to Denise.

Sources

This article is part of an independent fan site dedicated to documenting the work, life, and impact of Zachery Dereniowski (MDMotivator). We are not affiliated with Zachery, his team, Kindness Is Cool, the Mental Health Movement, the KindnessWithZachery Foundation, or any of his sponsors. All content is researched and written by fans, sourced from public material, and intended as celebratory and informational. To follow Zachery directly, visit @mdmotivator on TikTok or Instagram.