ROCKINGHAM — Five students at Cordova Middle School have received invitations to the National Youth Leadership Forum for Exploring STEM. Among those is Allie Martin, an rising eighth grader, who has turned to fundraising to help pay for the $2,495 residential tuition.
“I think I send out about 100 emails last night” asking for financial support, said Janet Wallace, Allie’s grandmother. I’ve asked every county commissioner, the sheriff’s department.”
Allie said her teacher, Matthew Ganoe, told her and the other students about the Explore STEM forum and she eagerly applied.
“When I got (the acceptance letter) in the mail I got happy because I love science, technologies and everything,” Allie said. “I want to be a scientist whenever I grow up.”
The Explore STEM forum, led by Envision, is being hosted by 11 different universities and colleges but only one of those is in North Carolina. It is being hosted by Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem and tuition is $2,495 for those who require housing and $2,095 otherwise.
Allie enrolled before she had the funds because the Envision website says it’s a first-come-first-serve program.
To help balance this, Allie has been selling baked goods for donations and has stood outside of Walmart asking for donations with signs that read “My teacher believes in me … will you?” They have also set up a CashApp account under the username $takeAllietoStem to accept electronic donations as well as cash and check.
“I hear a lot of people my age say, ‘There’s nothing for the children to do.’ Well, maybe you’re not directing them,” said Wallace.
Ganoe set up a GoFundMe page for the five students that plan on attending the STEM forum. However, there were only three donations as of May 24, all from Allie’s family members.
According to Wallace, a few of the students that were invited, outright declined the offer due to costs.
There is a scholarship application on Envision’s website but according to Allie’s family it only covers 30 percent of the costs and they wouldn’t find out she was accepted until two weeks after the first tuition payment was due.
She has had A’s and B’s since at least fourth grade, according to Allie’s mother, Susan Martin. Allie is looking to do early college in ninth grade, which is similar to dual enrollment but instead the classes are held at Richmond Community College and not the high school.
