Help For The Second City!

Hello! If you are reading this message, thank you for taking the time to stop by and check this out! This campaign has been designed to help me reach my overall goal of pursuing a career as an actor. Let me tell you a little about my story. My name is Miles Kolby Meador. I was born in 1993 in Decatur, IL, and was raised mostly in the small town of Oreana, IL. When I was 10 years old, I was offered a part in a church production of "Four Tickets To Christmas." Simply thinking it would be a neat experience, I got involved and feel in love with it. This passion was coupled with a love for entertaining others and making people laugh and feel good about themselves, and over time it slowly began to grow and develop. After spending four years of performing in high school, the time came to decide upon a college. I had always worked very hard in school, trying to graduate as a Valedictorian, which I was able to accomplish. My dedication to my education has always been fueled by the desire to make myself the best that I could so I could serve others in the best way possible. I ended up choosing to attend Olivet-Nazarene University, because it offered me the highest amount of scholarship money. While I wanted to attend University of Illinois, I knew that it would set me back financially a lot more and make it more difficult to pursue my overall dream of acting. Anyone who knows me well knows about my struggles in my time at Olivet. At the end of my freshman year I was looking to transfer, but a conversation with a certain professor convinced me to stay. Jerry Cohagan, the theatre director for the school and a professor had the opportunity to work with me in one of his classes, and at the end of the semester he encouraged me to audition for the fall play in the next semester. That conversation convinced me to stay put, and while some things remained difficult, I had found a home in the theatre department. Under Cohagan's tutelage, I was able to grow in my acting capacity and further discover why I loved it so much. In my senior year, I was able to spend a semester in Los Angeles doing acting for the camera, and was very grateful for my experience out there. Upon graduation, I thought I would be wise and try to work for a few years and pay down my debt before pursuing acting full tilt. I wanted to be as free as possible from the ties of debt, so I could pursue my passion with full gusto. Unfortunately, after a full year of working not much had changed in my situation. True, I have taken steps to get me closer to my goal like moving to Manteno to be closer to the city, but financially I have made very little headwind. I have told myself repeatedly not to get frustrated and to keep plugging away, but I had reached a point where I was burnt out and quite miserable. I felt as though I had so much passion and energy to use to help others, but it was being squandered here and there. It wasn't until another series of conversations that I made up my mind. My mentor, Tim Weihrauch straight up told me that until I was doing what God put me on this Earth to do, I was going to continue to be miserable. He told me that God was bigger than college debt, and I needed to learn to trust him more. That rattled in my head for a few months, until another conversation with my good friend Caroline Talbott, in which she also convinced me to get after it. Those conversations led me to this. I have tried to escape, I have prayed to have it removed from my heart, but I cannot get rid of it. I LOVE ACTING. It is what drives me, I cannot explain the feeling I get when I perform and am able to move something deep within an audience. I love telling stories and causing emotion to be incited within the viewer, be it extreme joy or sheer sorrow. My goal has always been to become the best actor that I could be, and use that to pour back into people and help them in their situations. I truly believe this is my calling from God, and that is why I am asking for your help. In times past, artists had to rely on the help of a patron to provide from them while they pursued their work. Art does not pay off immediately like working a job does, and while I have been working, with my bills I am barely able to make any headwind to save money for me to get to the city.  That is why I am asking for your help. I am looking to raise $5,000 to help cover the cost of beginning classes at the Second City and to help with rent/bills for the next 5 months. That will give me time to get ahead and hopefully have a self-funding job in the city. The classes I am looking to take begin mid-August, and I am looking to begin to make the move in a few weeks after the production of Sweeney Todd that I am in wraps up. I am asking if people could give just $10.00, that's it! If you could give up the cost of one meal to help me out, I would be forever grateful. My goal is to try and get 500 people who can give $10.00. Obviously anything above that would be incredibly helpful as well, but I know the economy has been rough lately! If I am able to reach my goal, anything above it will be used to put towards future classes. Please do not feel obligated to give. If you have read my story and don't feel like investing in it, if you could just give me words of encouragement that would mean the world to me as well! Regardless of the outcome, I will be taking classes at Second City, but it is this campaign that will determine how easy or difficult it will be financially. Please consider investing in me and my goal and helping me to achieve what I truly feel is my purpose in this world. Thank you and have a blessed day.