Lazarus Clark's Education Fund
At the age of three Lazarus Clark was diagnosed with severe autism had lost all communication and social skills. Originally the plan was to homeschool our kids but after the diagnoses and him entering into academic environments he immediately began showing improvement and then began to thrive.
Now eight years later thanks, Speech Therapy Services, attending a great school and his hard work, not only is he doing far better than I could have hoped he is also excelling in every category, winning awards and performing above his grade level.
Just this year he entered into the GATE (Gifted and Talented Education) program has begun learning the violin and won an Essay Champion medal for an essay he wrote while graduating DARE class.
He has consistently spoken about becoming a Scientist specifically an Astronomer or Engineer. His scores on tests such as the ISAT are consistently in top categories (level 4 advanced) or perfect.
We have created this funding campaign to help pay for his continuing education. Our goal is to cover the expenses that will need payed as he enters more activities and classes throughout middle school and high school and then be able to afford to put him through college.
Every dollar raised will be specifically used to pay for his classes, tuiton, materials, fees, and uniforms.
Much of his success is thanks to assistance he has recieved, great people giving him help locally and his incredible love of learning and achieving. Also thanks to great programs such as Khan Academy & Hoffman Academy.
In his free time he practices javascript and plays with game emulators or loves to use science kits and read educational books. At only 11 years old he already dabbles in algebra, calculus, programing and anything educational he can get his hands on.
His mother is a CNA who is training to be a pharmacy tech through Penn Foster but our goals for him and his dreams are much bigger.
Our goal is currently set at 30,000. When we meet this goal it would be help cover costs through a community college andor help pay for partial tuition through the local university, ISU.
Of course the final tuition cost of a university degree is a lot more than that, If we can surpass that goal then we figure each year of a great college such as Harvard, which I am sure he is smart enough to enter, has an expected yearly cost of 76,000 per year. Some master's or docterate degrees could take eight to ten years. With a total astounding cost of 760,000. Quite the stretch goal.
From the harvard website:
https://www.gse.harvard.edu/financialaid/tuition
Standard Full-Time Ed.M. & CAS Budget for the 2017-2018 Academic Year (9 months)
TUITION* $ 46,816
RENT, UTILITIES, & FOOD $ 18,366
HEALTH INSURANCE FEES* $ 4,272
BOOKS & SUPPLIES $ 926
LOCAL TRANSPORTATION $ 1,370
PERSONAL EXPENSES $ 3,930
FEDERAL LOAN FEES $ 218
TOTAL ED.M. STUDENT BUDGET $ 75,898
It would be quite amazing to get him into a great university.
This is not just a fund for a short term requirement of cash or to meet immediate fee's and costs for his activities but it is An investment into a very intelligent child's entire life and academic future.
He is already doing outstanding and winning numerous awards; academic achievement, musical, writing and doing great on standardized tests. This will help secure his future education.
He also recently made the front page of the Idaho State Journal.
Update: It has been about a year since we first set up this page and we haven't raised much but we have been putting what we can into savings.
Laz is now in middle school and still scoring adavnced on his ISATs Math and ELA. He is getting pretty good on the violin, which we are still paying off monthly and formed a comic book club for part of the year.
Still really hoping for him to be able to go through a university, he is showing even more interest in becoming a professor.
Thank you for your interest in helping him and thank you very much for the donations. Lazarus is a very loving kid and I am positive he thanks you all as well.
