Altering the Course of Children’s Lives

Hello, everyone. We are teachers campaigning to raise the funds that will send poverty-stricken, at-risk students to continuing-education summer camps. Students will individually choose a camp to attend, based on respective levels of interest. Each summer camp will educate and engage students in one of the following career fields: Engineering; Arts and Music; or Architecture, Art & Design. Students were introduced to all three fields through elective courses this year, while showing noticeable interest and aptitude through coursework.

The money raised will be used to pay camp fees ($600 - $1,300 per student), which includes tuition, meals, housing, and supplies. The more money we raise…….the more students we can send to camp.

Consequently, we have allowed overfunding for this campaign as we would need to raise more than our targeted goal in order to send all students (approximately 350) this year.

Our intent is to expose students to an environment that is vastly different from the one they’re familiar with. We want to open their eyes to the many possibilities that life has to offer. In turn, this is expected to combat their expectations of mediocre—oftentimes illegal—future lifestyles.

Furthermore, we want to support each student in obtaining at least one good/positive life experience. Currently, the students’ conversations, mindsets, and perspectives revolve around the negativity of their neighborhoods. The vast majority of them simply don’t have any positive experiences to share.

In the end, we want to alter the course of our students’ lives by giving them something positive to talk about, something good to want/strive for, and perhaps something to serve as the key to their “getting out” of hardships.

Sources cited:

https://childreninprison.wordpress.com/2014/04/13/kids-in-solitary-confinement-americas-official-child-abuse-2/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mGYHRAKs4Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAJFWYFPgH0