I am Matthew Walters. Many of you know me as Chewie, some know me as Santa.

Those of you who know me well, know how important my family is to me. That's the reason I'm reaching out here today.

Many of you know my son Michael. He's 16 and a great kid. He's a smart, funny and extremely talented. One of those talents centers around theatrical lighting. He's in love with the technical aspects of lighting a stage for a production. The style of lights, the way they communicate with each other, how they can be programmed for proper cues, etc...

Everything! He wants to become a Theatrical Master Electrician. He's planning to go to school for it.

In November he attended the Texas Thespians State Festival and competed in Lighting Design where he won a Technical Thespy and qualified for Nationals!

It takes place June 21–26 at Indiana University in Bloomington. Unfortunately, as of right now, the school is not paying for the members of the troupe that qualified to go to the festival. So all costs for the festival as well as travel to and from fall to the members. And since he's under 18 is not traveling with an "Adult Leader" for the troupe, he requires a chaperone. Effectively doubling the cost to attend.

Here's where the GoFundMe comes in. We need to raise the money to get him there. We're working on ways for him to earn the money, as well as ways for use to raise the funds ourselves, but I'm afraid we'll fall very short.

I always feel like much less than a decent father when I have to do things like this so my kids can participate in things, but dealing with feeling uncomfortable far outweighs dealing with the feeling I would have if I didn't at least try to get him to Nationals.