Months before I was on my way to YYGS, there was a concern than my father and I had. I had managed to get financial aid to attend YYGS but unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to cover the entire cost of the trip. My father was willing to take out loans and find any way for me to attend the program, because he saw it as a grand opportunity for me. I didn’t want him to take out loans and I began searching other ways of financing my trip to New Haven.
I first reached out to the arts center that I have been attending since the 8th grade and asked them if there was any chance they could help me finance the trip. They were able to contribute $1,000 to my trip which was amazing because it helped me cover much of the cost for tuition. Afterwards, I began talking to a teacher named Ms. Ram who helped me out with applying to another summer program and I asked her if there was any way she could help me out with finding the remaining money I needed to pay for YYGS. Ms. Ram was not only able to fundraise the remaining money I needed to pay off for the tuition, but also found someone to pay my flight, which was incredible. I was so ecstatic that there were people who believed in me without fully knowing me and contributed some of their own money in order for me to attend YYGS. This inspired me and pushed me to make the absolute best of my time at Yale.
Because of this act of kindness from all these people, I have decided to launch an organization dedicated to fundraising money for summer program scholarships and educating high school students about summer opportunities available to them tentatively called Support For Summer. Ever since I was in the 8th grade, I have been able to attend different summer programs in different institutions and different parts of the world, which have allowed me to learn so much about myself and others. I would like to teach others who are like me and from the same area as me about the wonderful opportunities that they can take during the summer such as internships or programs for sports or even a pre-college program at a school they would like to attend one day. I hope to launch this initiative by next month and I have already began getting some friends and staff members on board with this program. I hope to have the scholarship ready for students by next April and I hope to use social media to educate and tell the youth in my community about the wonderful opportunities that are out there, such as YYGS.