Help Michael Lee Get To Harvard
Most folks know me as a poet and a performer. While these identities are large parts of who I am, they tell only a small fraction of my story. On September 29th, 2008 I got clean and sober at the age of 20 after almost 5 years of drug addiction and alcoholism. At that time, I wasn’t thinking about what I wanted to do when I was 27, how I wanted to make a living or a mark on the world. I was thinking about the only two options I saw for myself: sobriety or death.
Upon getting sober I discovered a great deal about myself, my passions, my love for people, and how these intersect. Poetry and art, through the darkest times in my life, have helped me survive.
For the last six years I have brought my passions in youth work and arts to youth experiencing homelessness in Minneapolis. A large part of my work has been arts programming, exploring art as healing and narrative building/re-construction, both on individual and communal levels. One of my primary goals as a youth worker is to be a part of a community effort to increase arts access for youth. I want to help create space for youth to tell their stories, to heal, to improve their craft, to build, to grow. Art kept me alive, gave me a new life and provided me better tools to navigate through the world, but only because I had access to it. How many young folks don’t have access to quality arts programming? The desire to help bridge that gap has fueled my artistic and community work for years, and lead me to develop an arts program for homeless youth living at Avenues for Homeless Youth, a youth shelter in Minneapolis I have worked at for the past five years.
This past Fall, wondering how I could increase my reach in the world, I applied to the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Arts in Education Program on a pipe dream whim. What if? What if I had access to one of the best universities in the world and had the opportunity to study, deeply, intensely, and intentionally the work I have been engaged in and the work I seek to engage with for the rest of my life?
Well, it happened. I got in.
A recovering alcoholic who barely graduated high school and, who, by all accounts, never should have survived his teenage years or even wanted to, got into Harvard. Now, I need help actually getting there.
Between grants and loans I don’t even have half of the money I need to attend this program. Between tuition, mandatory health care, living expenses, and moving expenses, I need help raising $33,905 (to be exact).
After getting in and learning the exact cost I was resolute in my decision not to go, but after taking time to consider, and at the advice of many friends, community members and family, I have decided to make a run at it as a means to invest in the work I want to do in this world. I asked my best friend “if I can raise $40,000 on GoFundMe, why wouldn’t I just take that money to start a youth organization and skip Harvard all together?”. His response, “because you could go to Harvard, gain the insight, tools and networks you don’t have, then start a youth organization that can raise $400,000. Or a 4 million. This program is your first big investment into the program you will one day create”. This program is more than just about my learning, and education. It is about enacting that knowledge. Like faith, knowledge without works is dead.
Poems:
Pass on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JAq6VpmgB0
The Addict, a Magician: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rsp_3uz__zs
Shelters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZCBBny3PKk
Waking Up Naked: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAy-R_QRyvU
