Help Caroline Johnson Attend Engineering Program

My daughter Caroline is an extraordinary human being and a positive presence for all those around her. She has triumphed over personal adversities, including being in a single parent home, while remaining ever kind, full of good humor and motivated to excel in all her endeavors--which she does. Caroline is a sophomore at Siloam Springs High School (Arkansas), where she is an Honor Roll student with a desire to enter college and prepare for a career in a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) field. She has already begun pursuing this goal through being captain in a computer programming competition, attending Space Camp at the US Space and Rocket Center and taking all possible pre-AP and AP courses. She has been recognized for high academic achievement by Duke University’s Talent Identification Program, and she maintains this standard while being an all-region clarinet player for the school’s bands, volunteering in her community and donating her hair to the Wigs for Kids organization in support of children battling cancer.

 

For these reasons, I am very proud of Caroline and elated to announce that she has been invited to attend the National Youth Leadership Forum in Engineering (NYLFE) in June 2022 on the campus of Georgia Tech in Atlanta. Caroline was chosen to attend by George Mason University’s Envision Program, which would grant her 2 college credits for her participation. The NYLFE would help place Caroline squarely on the path to achieve every goal she has set and will continue to set for herself because it is an immersive, experiential learning program uniquely designed to expand upon her math and science expertise. She would gain invaluable training in leadership, public speaking, information analysis, critical thinking and problem solving in real world situations, all while developing relationships with mentors who can provide her future recommendations.

 

Extremely important to me about this opportunity is that Caroline would be able to interact with leading engineering professionals and participate in workshops that would add important skills to her passion. Two of the amazing things she would learn to do are applying electronics concepts to program a model helicopter to fly and utilizing 3D software to design and print her own model rocket. Her great smile in the picture above captures her excitement upon realizing that!

 

This opportunity is a once in a lifetime chance for Caroline to spend time at a major engineering university and get ahead in pursuing college and a subsequent vocation. I know that being able to spend a week on a college campus when I was in high school gave me a significant advantage in selecting the right school for me and getting an early start on my own career in education. My parents somehow made that possible for me, and I want Caroline to have a similar experience. She deserves the best of everything, but I cannot provide the tuition for NYLFE's high quality curriculum alone as a single dad with an educator's salary. While I plan carefully to afford her experiences and short trips that allow her to grow and experience the world, I did not anticipate the invitation from NYLFE, yet it is too important to decline, and that is why I am asking for your help in ensuring that Caroline can attend this prestigious program. We have already accepted enrollment into the program, which will require $3,841 payable by the first of June 2022, in trust of your support. You can learn more about the NYLFE program at Envision Engineering. The itemized list of expenses is below; if more than this amount is received, it will go toward travel and hotel for me and Caroline to and from Atlanta, plus her incidentals during her week at Georgia Tech. Thank you so much for contributing to her future success!