<div><strong>Jennifer, Tom, Max, and Jamal, a Saint Louis Sudbury School family, have organized a fundraiser to benefit our nonprofit school! </strong>Their son, Jamal, recently graduated from Sudbury. <strong>They are raising funds to help support the school’s Tuition Assistance Program so that more families can experience the life changing benefits of a Sudbury experience. </strong>Please consider making a donation of any amount. Thank you for your support!
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<div>About 60% of all students at Sudbury receive financial assistance. The school is largely dependent on undercompensated, talented, and dedicated staff and volunteers, as well as the generosity of community partners. We would like to ensure that more young people can have the opportunity to experience a unique learning community where students have the freedom, space, and time to pursue their interests, discover who they are, and develop life-long communication and decision-making skills. All of this freedom to learn and to be is bounded by school rules and policies developed and maintained by the entire community. Young people and adults help run the school together!
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<div><strong>Jamal's story in his own words</strong>
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<div>"I spent the darkest period of my life at Sudbury. This was because as soon as I joined Sudbury, I was welcomed into the community by the staff and students, and for the first time in my life, I felt safe, trusted, and comfortable enough to feel my emotions. So I felt it all. I felt it all so much. I started writing songs about how I felt and recording those lyrics over beats I found online in one of the recording rooms at school. Then starting in January 2023, I began teaching myself how to produce my music with Pro Tools in the recording studio at Sudbury.
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<div>Sudbury trusted me to trust myself which was so wild and unheard of for me at first, because before Sudbury, I had never been somewhere where I felt trusted. Sudbury didn’t teach me anything. It provided me with a life saving environment to teach myself what I needed to learn for my own sake. So the most valuable skill I learned at Sudbury was not how to do the Pythagorean theorem, manage a pretty report card, grit my teeth through five hours of homework every night, memorize countless facts solely for a test, or how to get used to the habit of suffering through unnecessary pain.
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<div>The most valuable skill I learned at Sudbury was far more valuable than anything I ever learned in conventional school when I was younger. It was a skill that humans must use every day of their lives. At Sudbury, I learned to trust myself."
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<div><strong>The family’s story in their own words</strong>
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<div>"This is my 18-year old’s empty cubby at Saint Louis Sudbury School. He graduated in May. When I first saw it, I felt some sense of loss, but then the empty space felt clear, open, and ready. In fact, another student said that they want to have our son’s old cubby since it has good vibes.
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<div>Our son started at Sudbury in 2021—coming from several well-meaning and well-resourced conventional schools. These schools that embraced and celebrated culturally accepted views of achievement, a viewpoint that works for some young people but not all.
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<div>Jamal arrived at Sudbury numb and shut down. We, his parents, felt lost, broken, depressed, unseen, unheard, and sad. Over the years, our family was handed a list of diagnoses and we researched everything and anything, dragging him to many experts, physicians, holistic service providers, and more. Nothing really helped. And yet, what we really needed to do was to stop trying to fix him. To let him be himself and know himself. Can you imagine being handed a treatment plan that says, “BACK OFF?” I wish we had. Much earlier.
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<div>Saint Louis Sudbury School welcomed him in a quiet and kind way. He wasn’t able to stay more than an hour or so initially due to years of camouflaging his true self to blend in a neurotypical environment and the anxiety that comes with that, but the students and staff came together in School Meeting and modified attendance requirements and supported him along the way. He sat at a table and made cardboard art for two weeks, not really talking with people, but watching and listening to all the activity around him. He eventually joined in, made friends, was trusted by students of all ages and staff, and served on nearly every school committee. He thrived. With no homework, tests, grades, or required classes, he got a chance to determine purpose that made sense for him and develop internal motivation.
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<div>He was responsible for big aspects of running the school, navigating conflict with students, and even helping with parent communications in collaboration with staff. He learned guitar, taught himself keyboard, figured out how to use the highly complex music production software, Pro Tools, and more. He cycled 30 miles a day roundtrip by himself to and from school—growing his sense of independence and personal accomplishment. And he started to figure out who he was, what he was good at, and how if you switch the framework of what achievement, happiness, and growth can look like, he was actually quite amazing. Not in a “he’s amazing for someone who isn’t typical,” but just, “he’s amazing.”
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<div>Life at Sudbury wasn’t always steady growth for our son and our family grew to be okay with that. There were periods when he couldn’t attend school due to health conditions and autistic burnout. Without the conventional markers of achievement, sometimes we felt a little untethered, unsure of what progress looks like. But what we did see and will forever be grateful for is that our child came back to life in many ways at Sudbury, could engage with the world again, and started to find what brought him joy—even when working through challenges.
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<div>Also, the Saint Louis Sudbury School community helped us recognize and leave the high stakes and stressful parenting world of relentless future planning, of believing that we could control so much, seeing childhood as a period of compliance, and accepting arbitrary success milestones.
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<div>At Saint Louis Sudbury School, he was treated as a full human in the present rather than an adult in the making who must wait until they turn 18 to truly start living.
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<div>Well, 18 is here. And, yes it’s still a bit scary, a bit unknown, and a lot exciting.
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<div>As a graduate of Sudbury, he’s had substantial practice understanding who he is, what he wants, how to get there, how to be a responsible part of a community, how to trust himself, and how to ask for help. Our family has no idea what he will do next, but we feel pretty good that he will find his way. And that is good enough for us.
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<div>Who knows what tomorrow could be?"
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Karen Osborn

Janet Osborn

Julia Flood

Anonymous

Jeffrey Delfield

Alice Ferris

James Lin

Karyn May

Nancy Bingham

Jennifer Lin and Tom Osborn

Andrea Nash

Sarah Mayer

Shlomit Nehorai

Changing Lives Fundraiser

platform

Platform is iOS

Android

Adyen Google Pay Development Audience

$opt_dummy_attribute

English only

Deprecate Stripe Legacy

dyn_template_ids

Adyen V6 Bene Transfer & MyMoney Campaign Organizers - test01

Bene transfer V6 and AdyenV6MyMoney Campaign Organizers - production

OneTrust next-app audience

fundCountryCode

NextDoor Share Option Users

Fundraisers with Reactions feature capability

fundCurrencyCode

US + Non-charity COs Only

locale

fund country is US and user language is English

personId

comms-internal-person-ids

Enhanced Story Experience Users

Suggested Goal Experience Users

user language is English and fund country: US, AU, DK, FI, IE, NO, SE, CA, GB; 

Poster share - new funds eligible (newest 9/18)

Streaming widgets beta user

paymentProcessor

3DS payment method

user language is English and fundCountry: US, AU, DK, FI, IE, NO, SE, CA, GB; 

currencyCode

Money Box Donation List Prompt Experiment Audience

GoFundMe Employees

ipAddress

Mark Rieth IP Address

Version 9.2.0 and above

Fund is in English speaking country

desktop

Android v12.11.0 and above

Platform is Android

paymentMethodType

checkoutType

Payment method type group to be vaulted on success

admin pr kit prod

EUR Donation Upsell

Share Text generation Skip Fundraiser

(prod) new funds eligible for amp12 (UGC gallery)

fintrac_cad_idv_form_v2 audience

paymentProcessorAccountId

fallback mode accounts

proCampaignId

p2p legacy startfundraising page

AMP24 New Funds Only PROD (DO NOT MODIFY)

countryCode

charityId

UKCharities

Federated Search Internal Testing

route.pathname community

US Donation Upsell audience 

Auto Thanks Feature Audience

Supporter Comments Eligible Funds

International Only

fundId

braze fundraiser group 

Payment Identity Transfers ATO Risk Check (Targeted) - Production

Fundraiser Saved Payment Method Rate Limit Bypass (Production)

leaderboard-partner-id-audience-givepanel

Eligible for Profile Comment Badge

Version 9.2.1 and above

AUD Donation Upsell audience

fundraiserCountryCode is US/EN

Active Fundraiser - Smart Default Cadence

DAF Internal

Vault on success card payment method

Platform is iOS v11.0.0 and above

Desktop users

Person ids

United States (US) users

allow yuno fundraisers for test

Mexico country code

Posters INTL

NPO Profile Opted-In

iOS at or above 12.4.0

non-US recurring donors

Canada Campaign Owner Group

Fundraiser Without Meta Link

Scheduler payment tester gorup

charityCommunityId

Charities allow to be claimed unclaimed (PRD)

Canada (CA) users

UC Tipping v20250115 International

pymk_production_xplr_fe_team

Android at or above 12.2.0

Profile photo entry point audience

smart goals (fundraiser/manage) on test01

Activity Tracking v1 Beta Testing

writePath

Stream Notification

start gfm intl allowed locales

Platform is iOS v11.2.0 and above

NPO upsell education category

unclaimed charities

prod_ach_audience

AI Chatbot Audience

amp13 only new funds (prod) (anyword auto)

UC Flow Enabled (Prod)

Payment Identity Beneficiary Verification - Production

shared notification bell audience

Custom users

ach frontend audience

Android v11.0.0 and above

Users Receiving Payments Paused Notifications

smart goals test01

Manage Coach - US English Organizers Only + new funds only

Team EGG - IP Address list

NPO recommendations prod

Fundraiser Without Instagram Deep Link

Native 11.4.0 and above

UC Tipping v20250107

ai_title_page

anyword

openai

control

manual_entry

userEmail

template_id

userId

fundUrl

isCharityCo

email

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partnerId

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npoProfileOptIn

fundIsLinkedWithMeta

hasSessionDonation

categoryGroup

isCampaignOwner

fundHasInstagramDeepLink

Native 11.3.0 and above

Native 11.4.0 and higher

New funds eligible - Video Sharing (PROD)

GB Donation Upsell audience 

Auto Thanks V3 Rollout Audience

Thank you V3 testing whitelist

isRecurringFriendly

Is Recurring Friendly

Excluded funds - Video Sharing

NPO upsell animals category

NPO upsell disaster relief category

Logged In Users

CH Donation Upsell audience

Android v10.6.0 and above

NPO upsell essential needs category

NPO upsell medical category

userCurrencyCode

Localized Currency

NPO upsell cancer category

v11.5.0 and above

testAudience

pathname

Survicate

appVersion is at or above 12.8.0

Non-charity fund

isChallengeFundraiser

challenge-fundraisers

Payment Identity Launch Verification - Production

New funds eligible - Posters v2

CAD Donation Upsell Audience

Braze Email Tester

NPO Profile Opted-Out

iOS App Version

hasKnownDonors

PYMK has donors

iOS v12.3.0 and above

Just $430$ to go! Make an impact.

Changing Lives Fundraiser

Just $430 to go!
Make an impact.