Cal Debate Camp for Lee

Hey, it’s me, Lee. I’m asking for your support for me to attend The Cal National Debate Institute this summer. 

As you hopefully know, I’m a sophomore at Lowell High School and have taken on a lot of activities beyond my rigorous course load. I’m a writer and reporter for The Lowell –my school’s official student-run news publication, I’m a member of Lowell Model United Nations and, perhaps the most challenging, I’m a member of the Policy Debate Team.  

You probably know I also spend time scrutinizing fictional texts and writing my own.  

I realize some may consider me ridiculously privileged to get to participate in all this stuff. And, I do feel lucky. So lucky, that it’s a little hard to ask for help given I know there are so many other worthy and worthwhile places to contribute.  

Something I can promise you is that I will use expanding my skills and the personal growth I get from policy debate to make a real difference. I’m already trying to give back by helping train novices. It’s important to me that you know, I’m not in this just for myself, or to help me crush trolls in meaningless online arguments, or to help me get into college—I really plan to use my hard-earned skills to contribute something meaningful wherever I can. I don’t know EXACTLY what that will be yet –I’m only 15, but when I look at the nearly illiterate leadership in our world today, I know we can do a lot better and that we’ll have to if we’re going to save ourselves, not to mention our planet.

I was promoted to varsity at the end of my freshman year, and maybe that was too early—my partner and I have been creamed quite a bit this year by (sometimes much) older and more experienced teams. But we’re learning a lot from those losses. And, I’ll learn even more at the debate institute where I’ve already been accepted to the 3-week program. I’ll live at the dorm at UC Berkeley and be debating from the moment I arrive onward—with individualized coaching to help refine my speaking and argument techniques—and culminating with a tournament. This is what we’ll be doing from 9AM to 9PM for three weeks.  It’s going to cost $2850. If you feel inclined to help me in any way (however big or small) towards getting there, I’d really appreciate it.

Thanks, again, for considering this.

Love,

Lee