Help Support Oakton's Competitive Speech Team

On 3/30 at 7:30p cst we received an update to let us know that our brand new department chair Bob Gynn has secured $1000 to help us in our journey this year!!! But we STILL NEED YOUR HELP

Donating to our speech team will not only help us exponentially in getting to national competition, but it’s going to support the program in general… and we need it! Once we achieve our goal, we want you all to know that your donations will be used to contribute to this team both for this competitive season and for years to come. With this being our second time facing a situation with no money and nowhere to turn along with several “too close for comfort” years where we were holding our breath, we have really still need your help and deeply appreciate your kind donation. To show you the impact this activity has we want to show you Bushra Khan, our Gold Medal Award winning poet from last year. Her story can be found here along with a great description of what the speech team is and does for students.

In an effort to have all hands on deck in financially supporting the team, our team will also be selling bracelets on the Des Plaines campus this Thursday that Julia Browne made, in order to secure funds for the team because we believe in this team and in us.

Thank you again for your generosity so far and we look forward to showing the nation just how amazing these three dynamic women can be.

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To make a Tax Deductible Donation, Please Scroll Down to towards the end

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Immediately below, THIS is our Original Post which describes the team members and what we are up to as well as why we would like your help. We are out of the woods for our trip to nationals thanks to your donations so far and the money secured by our department chair. But it’s still worth the read :)

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The Oakton College Competitive Speech Team has worked very hard to both qualify and earn their way to attend the Phi Rho Pi National Public Speaking Tournament that is set to take place between April 9th-April 15th, 2023 in Washington DC! With events like poetry, prose, dramatic interpretation, speaking to persuade, speaking to inform, impromptu speaking and more, the skills these students get are life changing.

As you can imagine, the pandemic took a toll on both our team numbers and budget yet, the skills that come with competitive public speaking along with the memories from having attended such a competition, are priceless. This year, while Oakton has been able to provide much of our operating budget, we are unfortunately finding ourselves in a situation where we are short of the amount of money we need to attend this year’s competition. While it’s been a slow climb, our team has really come together and gotten increasingly better and want to attend nationals. For fun, our team has assembled some of our past semester's highlights and wins: https://youtu.be/7t8Eb77qhpg

Donating to our team will not only help this group attend the national tournament, but it will allow our team to be on stronger financial footing moving forward for years to come and we therefore are asking for your help.

Our team consists of:

Julia Browne, Wiktoria Pzetacznik, Samantha McCarthy, Mahnoor “MJ” Jamal (assistant coach & former Oakton team member), Jill Valentine (assistant coach & former Bradley competitor), Christy Carter (assistant coach & ADOF), and David Nadolski, our Director of Oakton’s Forensics Competitive Speech Team.

That said, our team this year is collectively the highest gpa and most involved team Oakton has ever had. These students give back regularly to society and we are convinced that if you see what they do, you’ll quickly realize the good that is going to come of these students as they are all in their last year at Oakton and will be off to incredible things that will have a ripple effect for years to come.

Team Members

Julia Browne, our team president has so far earned a Bronze Medal at Regionals just last weekend as her highest award to date. But besides serving as team captain and president, Julia Browne is a part of the Environmental Club, Bible Study Club as well as the Speech and Debate Club. She works part-time with Oakton's Sustainability Department as a Student Sustainability Expert in addition to her normal, outside-of-school job, maintaining her grades as an honors student and has recently been accepted at Rush University’s pre-med program this upcoming Fall.

Wiktoria Pzetacznik, has so far earned a Bronze Medal at Regionals just last weekend as her highest award to date. When not working part-time as a student employee for Oakton’s Biology Lab as an Aide, or at her second part time job outside of school, in her “free time” she competes on the Chicago Underwater Hockey Team and even volunteers at Chicago’s Field museum. She too aspires to pursue a career in medicine and is part of the honors society at Oakton while also taking courses to strengthen her knowledge in medicine through taking courses to help her learn to be an EMT as part of her path.

Samantha McCarthy is the VP of Students for Global Health and Sustainability. She also serves as President of Phi Theta Kappa, Oakton’s only Academic Honors Society while being a part of the Competitive Speech Team. Still to be decided, Samantha is an active applicant at Lake Forest, UIC, and Purdue and plans to pursue her degree in Actuarial Science.

The National Speech Competition this year is in Washington, D.C. and is extremely important to the team as they have worked all year long to qualify for it. The team has been to an abundance of tournaments that take place every other weekend, spent countless hours practicing, and have worked tremendously hard to qualify while balancing numerous extracurriculars and academic activities.

By donating to Oakton’s Speech team, you will help provide these students with the opportunity to showcase all their hard work and dedication at a National level while also helping them to achieve their full potential. Your contribution, no matter how small, will make a significant impact on these students' lives while allowing you all in a way to become part of our team.

We will be hosting an additional fundraiser on 5/13/23 at 7:30pm on Oakton’s Des Plaines Campus in the TV Studio where we will give you a deeply appreciative round of applause should you attend. Tickets can be purchased by clicking this link!

Thank you again for your consideration and we look forward to your support. It will give good students a great opportunity to finish their season the right way.

Sincerly,

Oakton’s Competitive Speech Team

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TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATION INFO

While it will take a little longer for our team to receive tax deductible funds, they are still very much of value to our program and will help provide more of an institutional solution to our funding difficulties.

That said, should you want to donate in a tax deductible way, donors should make gifts to the Oakton Educational Foundation and the foundation will provide the donor with charitable consideration for their gift (they will receive an acknowledgment they can use for tax purposes).

Here are the specific instructions to give a tax deductible gift (to the Oakton Educational Foundation) in support of the Oakton Speech Team Fund:

***Donate by credit card online - go to www.oakton.edu/giving and select "Donate Now". Select your donation level.

Under Designations, use the drop-down menu to select the fund of interest or “Other” and type in the name of the fund you want your gift to support (Oakton Speech Team)

Complete your billing information and select "Donate." Your acknowledgment will be sent by email immediately after completing the gift.

or

Donate by check - made payable to the Oakton Educational Foundation, noting the designation in the memo line or your correspondence, and mailed to the Oakton Educational Foundation (1600 E Golf Rd, Des Plaines, IL 60016). Gift acknowledgments will be sent by mail within two weeks of receipt.

Thank you again for your consideration. Know that your donation will make a significant impact on the lives of these students for now and for years to come. We deeply appreciate your generosity.