Help our girls get to Washington D.C.

Six students from STEAM Academy Middle School need your help to get to Washington D.C. so they can compete in National History Day.

Sarah Diamond, Zaria Easterling, Mina Irani, Josie Renaud, Madina Smith, and Vanessa Winters all earned top prizes in the Missouri state NHD competition on April 22, securing spots in the national competition in June at the University of Maryland - College Park.

The girls have spent many hours researching their subjects, writing engaging presentations, and practicing their performances. They are eager to compete against the best and brightest from across the U.S.

But getting from north St. Louis County to Washington D.C. is going to be expensive.

Right now, airfare and on-campus accommodations are likely to cost $900 per person, though the price for plane tickets may rise even higher if we don't purchase soon.

The trip to nationals will not be a school-sponsored event or field trip, so the families must raise funds themselves and provide one adult chaperone for each child.

Days after we launched this GoFundMe, the Ferguson-Florissant School District agreed to sponsor the accommodations for each of the girls ($440 each). But the families still must pay for airfare, plus accommodations for the adult chaperones.

Our kids have worked hard to get this far, and we want to take them all the way.

Would you help our families afford to send our daughters to D.C.? We greatly appreciate any gift you can make.

The money raised through this GoFundMe will be split evenly between the students' families, and used to pay for travel and accommodations for the students and parent chaperones in June.

If we surpass our funding goal, any additional money will be given to the girls' teachers to help them finance their own trips to NHD (the district is not providing funding for them).