Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy travel grant?

Everyone has dreams of something they want to do. This can be your child's. When he is older, he can work extra jobs to earn money, save up, etc. I wanted to study in Europe my whole life but didn't have the money- I applied in college for a number of scholarships and won a fully paid, one-year scholarship at a German university.
Some dreams require you to wait, and maybe that isn't a bad thing.

I know what we're doing next summer!

I agree.

OP, I really don't think you need to worry about hobbling your son or stunting his intellectual growth. If he has a deep and abiding love for his chosen subject, it will, er, abide. If not, he will turn his intense focus and ability to understand and remember to something else. He may go through many such interests as he develops. And while it would be nice to take advantage of the museum-study offer, if you can't, you can't; and it sounds like the money you do have can be well spent on books, classes and science gear. He's only seven, and you are in the early stages of a great adventure.

I live in CA and grew up here. My parents were poor but loved a good family road trip. We camped our way across all of the western states growing up and visited many national parks etc. My son is now 8 and has packed along on many 9-10 day road trips with me. If we want to go, we usually drive because it's cheaper. If it's that important, you make it work.

I don't see $2,500 as an impossible number to work with if this really is the end all be all trip for your son. Recycle cans, rake leaves, walk the neighbor's dog, pet sit, babysit other people's kids for money, eat vegetarian 2x a week, sell random junk on craigslist. In high school, before I was old enough to get a work permit, I desperately wanted to attend a summer program in Australia. I worked for an entire year doing odd jobs, to save up the $3500 necessary to make the trip. I asked all my family to give me money for my birthday instead of gifts. You take the $5 or $10 and save it and turn it into the once in a lifetime trip.

Hi Orson!
It sounds like you really want to make this trip happen for your child and that is great! I think it is right to ask him to contribute as another poster suggested, perhaps not for all of the costs but maybe a set portion like spending money.
There are a ton of ways to do the trip on the cheap. Ask family members if they have hotel points to share, tent camping, hostels are all good ideas. Looking for $39 flights from Southwest or driving.
I haven't heard of travel grants but asking any and everyone who might be invested in this might lead to something helpful. Calling hotels and speaking to the management about your situation might yield a good price on a room.

We took our children to Disney last year and had saved for over 3 years to make that happen. We were gifted a stay at time share by family and had airline points to use. Our biggest expense was park tickets. This could be a teachable moment for your son, making a financial goal and saving together to make it happen. Asking questions like, should we go to the movies or stay home and put the $60 in our trip fund. Your son might also get a kick out of doing a fundraiser like asking neighbors to save their returnables for him. I know we just did that for a child in my daughters class who wanted to buy something for the Humane Society.

Good luck!

There are fundraising sites online, such as gofundme, where you can put forth your project or need and people can donate money to it. Of course, you'd have to provide a bit more detail there before anybody would have any interest.

I tend to spend what might be considered too much $ on the kid's interests...I just do.

anyway, I didn't post earlier because I thought others would have at least a few suggestions.
here is one example:
http://www.vagifted.org/scholarship.html
although they state the scholarship is for an academic program, it does seem like there might be something out there that could possibly work for you if you dig around. Or like others suggest, help your child start a fundraising campaign or create a proposal to take to a local business that might be able to help.

good luck!

Thank you, Chris. That's actually very helpful.

A lot of posters here sound quite negative about providing children with interesting educational opportunities that happen to cost money. That shocks me. I'm hearing a lot of "If he really likes it so much, he should be happy just to think about it until he grows up and pays for it himself" type stuff. Really? And these are the people raising the "gifted" kids who are supposed to be our future? My goal is to bend over backwards to provide my son with a great education. My goal is not to bend over backwards to buy him toys (he has almost none) and take him on ski trips. My goal is to feed his highly gifted mind. If this means I have to find ways to raise money for this experience or that, I don't mind. I do what I can. Maybe this means my child is spoiled. So be it. I'm spoiling him with education. To the gallows with me!

If you lived in Florida and Bill Gates offered to personally give your child a tour at Microsoft, would you try to find a way to get your child to Seattle? Or would you tell your child to hold a lemonade stand and hope he raised enough to make the trip when he's 20? Make him "build character" and "earn" the trip, despite the fact that the offer from Gates probably would not stand for thirteen years.

I would never have posted this question if I'd known people were going to be such scolds. If I could delete this thread, I would. Is there a way to do that?

BTW, if there are any homeschoolers critical of me here, keep in mind that most of you are forfeiting an entire annual income, let's conservatively say $20,000/yr, to provide educational opportunities to your child/children. The public school will educate your child for free, but you've chosen to "pay" $20,000 a year to keep him home. Nobody bats an eye when homeschoolers do this. They're doing right by their child! But I look into taking my child somewhere special one time and I'm misguided, spoiling my child.

Ouch.

I sincerely apologize if my post is one of the ones that offended you. My responses were genuine, well-intentioned, and I actually spent a bit of time researching options to make sure the suggestions I was offering were still doable.

I certainly didn't mean to scold and honestly thought you were looking for answers to the questions you asked.