NFT Being Auctioned By Morningside Teen To Support Homeless Youth

ATLANTA — A Morningside teen is combining his artistic skills with a suddenly trending, lucrative trend in digital currency to raise money for homeless Atlanta youth.

Rady Kronenberger created a digital art piece to sell online as a non-fungible token, or NFT, a digital marker that assigns a monetary value to … well, just about anything.

“I think this might be the first time this has ever been done,” Kronenberger told Patch, speculatively. “You don’t see the NFTs going to charitable organizations.”

His unique work, entitled “Scholarship,” has been on auction online since April and is set to close Friday with the highest bid at $4,846 to be donated to Atlanta charity CHRIS 180.

First of all, what is an NFT?

Forbes magazine last month described an NFT as a digital asset “that represents real-world
objects like art, music, in-game items and videos” that can be bought and sold online — often with cryptocurrency — and thus, are typically encoded with the same underlying technology as the cryptos. While they’ve been around since 2014, Forbes says the advent of digital artwork is making this the accepted way to make purchases or sales.

So how did a 16-year-old Grady High School sophomore become interested in NFT’s and decide to use it this way?

“I was on Instagram and saw a bunch of posts about this artist Beeple selling an NFT for $69 million,” he told Patch, but added his take on a different use for NFT to his auction page at OpenSea. “What if art could do good instead? Art that can make a difference in this world.”

He reached out to CHRIS 180, the charity that helps families and youth in need of everything from mental health to housing, and pitched his idea.

“I teamed up with CHRIS 180 and met Sabrina, someone who has faced a multitude of challenges yet persevered through it all," Kronenberger said. "Sabrina has overcome so much and has big dreams to attend school to study pediatrics. Her success is the real work of art, and I am privileged to showcase the beauty in her struggle."

And CHRIS 180 was happy to work with him.

"The CHRIS 180 team is incredibly thankful for Rady, who has gone above and beyond to create an amazing opportunity for Sabrina and her future," said Chaundra Luckett, Chief Marketing Officer of CHRIS 180. "Often, the youth in our programs have experienced countless letdowns and roadblocks in their lives, and acts of kindness like this have the potential to help them change the direction of their lives."

"Scholarship" is a portrait, of sorts, of Sabrina offering a unique perspective that Kronenberger said he hopes draws in whoever views the piece.

“I made it so that her face was the center of attention,” he said. “It was a bold thing … your eyes just go to her.”

And the artwork is available to the highest bidder when the bidding closes this Friday.