A teen spent 10 hours cleaning Buffalo's streets alone after a night of unrest. A grateful community gave him a full scholarship and a car.

• A teenager has been given a four-year scholarship, a new car, and insurance as a thank-you from Buffalo residents, after he was spotted cleaning up a street for 10 hours after a night of civil unrest.
• Antonio Gwynn Jr. loaded up a broom, dustpan, and garbage backs in a U-Haul truck he had rented days earlier, and took to Buffalo's Bailey Avenue at 2 a.m. to start cleaning. He didn't finish until around noon.
• The streets had been strewn with broken glass and litter from protesters, and Gwynn said it bothered him to see Buffalo in a state of destruction.

A teenager took to Buffalo's downtown streets at 2 a.m. and spent 10 hours cleaning up after a night of protests and civil unrest left shattered glass, debris, and garbage along an avenue spanning 17 blocks.

Antonio Gwynn Jr., an 18-year-old high school senior, told local media he had attended one of the protests, but saw on social media that the situation turned violent after he went home.

"I felt disgusted. My nerves were bad. They're destroying a city that could actually be very beautiful," Gwynn told the local ABC affiliate WKBW.

When Gwynn realized the extent of the damage, he threw a broom, dustpan, and trash bags in the back of a U-Haul truck he had rented a few days earlier, and started sweeping up, block by block.

"I decided to start at one end and make my way down the street," Gwynn told the Washington Post. "It was pretty quiet and I thought maybe I could finish cleaning it before people started going to work."

Gwynn worked from 2 a.m. to nearly 12 p.m. sweeping up the litter on the streets. The Post reported that he filled almost two dozen trash bags and placed them on his own curb for garbage pickup.

Buffalo residents chipped in to help Gwynn achieve his dream of opening an auto repair shop

Then, news of his good deed started making its way across Facebook. One resident took photos of Gwynn cleaning up, and they ended up on the Sweet Buffalo Rocks Facebook page, which posts about good Samaritans.

"We are told that when others came to help at 8 a.m. there was nothing to do because [Gwynn] had taken care of it," the page's owner, Kimberly LaRussa, wrote.

Gwynn then received an outpouring of gratitude and support from the community. A GoFundMe fundraiser quickly garnered more than $5,000 in donations, and one man offered up his 2004 red Mustang convertible.

It turned out to be a fitting gift — Gwynn's mother, who died in 2018, drove a similar red Mustang, according to CNN. Gwynn told the network he "didn't have any words" when he realized the significance of the gift.

Another local businessman heard about Block's gift and chipped in a year of free car insurance coverage for Gwynn.

When officials from Medaille College learned about Gwynn from local media, including his aspirations of opening his own auto repair shop one day, they granted him a four-year scholarship to take business classes.

"Community, integrity, curiosity, and excellence are Medaille's guiding core values, and Antonio Gwynn demonstrated all four in his initiative to clean up our city," the college's president said in a statement. "We would be honored to welcome him to our Medaille family."

Gwynn told the Post he's glad he could contribute something positive amid the unrest that's gripped the country since the killing of George Floyd in police custody last month.

"Violence is pointless. It doesn't help anything, and it doesn't change anything," he told the newspaper. "I was happy to help out, and I'm really surprised by the attention. I'm just really grateful for everybody's support."

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