Empower Lindsay's Career Pivot to Electrolysis

Hi dear ones across my life! I am trying to pivot/add a skill to my career; and wouldn't you know it's very expensive to retrain, especially when you're already laden with student debt (from the arts degree that is why I'm lovably underemployable)!

TLDR: Your friend Lindsay June Griffin would like to become an Electrolysis Technician for queers! I need $7000 for tuition, $8k-12k to be able to go full time and not also work full time. There is a $2500 initial payment that must be made but then I can pay weekly.

The long version: I am a caregiver and theatre artist, two disastrously underpaid positions. I have tried so many different types of jobs over the years, I tried leaving theatre all together, and it has given me a life rich with experience and community, but not money.

I am trying again, yet again. And this time I'm asking for your help, if you're so inclined! Electrolysis is the only FDA-certified method of permanent hair removal, and it can be an emotionally and medically necessary form of gender affirming care. I would like to learn how to do this work! The training and certification process requires 120 hours of practice and theory, and the total tuition is $6,950. For the highest level of training available in New York state, $10,000.

And while the school is fully accredited and does in some cases accept Federal Student Aid, I do not qualify for these loans because I already hold a bachelors degree. Go figure. I'm too overeducated to go back to school (unless I want to go into $100,000 worth of debt to go to graduate school) on the governments' dime (that I'll still be paying back until it ceases to exist).

SO I am turning to my loved ones near and far to ask for much less than $100,000!! If you have ever wanted to buy me a drink for my birthday - you can't do that anymore because I don't drink, but you CAN donate to my tuition fund.

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The long, long version: I have tried so many different jobs and poured blood, sweat, money, and tears into creating the life I have here, and now I am happier, and more supported than I've felt for a long time. I have hard-won housing stability, a wonderful community, and my dad is joining me here in 2025! But even with all of that love and support in the exciting next chapter, I have barely scraped by most years. Living the precarious life of a young, determined artist in New York City, I took any gig I could! Enthusiastically said yes! Honed my craft!

AKA worked for $0.00 - while also working awful minimum wage jobs and getting into student loan debt. Indie queer DIY theatre is not exactly lucrative. Those were choices I made freely, with so much hope and abandon, and I don't regret them.

I tried to go straight, so to speak, in more ways than one, and it just doesn't work for me. I'm not suited to the nonprofit admin life, acting pays nothing unless you're already rich and famous, and caregiving for disabled adults and children can be bleak and exploitative.

All I want is to care for the people I love, give back to my community, and make theatre.

If you're still reading, you're probably asking: Where does electrolysis come into the picture? I'll tell you, by way of non-sequitur: I have played at least 400 hours of Suika Game (a video game with cute bouncing fruit) in less than a year.

I think I can knock out 600 hours of training and then have a career in a detailed, repetitive task.

That said, I also don't want to entirely give up on theatre, but I can't even begin to think about that until I make more money. I could spend all my time writing grants or asking you every year to help me put up a show, or, I can ask you once for money so I can then have a job where I can make enough money and have a flexible enough schedule to do art at all (and maybe also just like, pay my rent in full every month.)

I really appreciate any support you can offer and thanks for reading! xoxo lindsay