Kids Immersive Education Fundraiser Lunch and Learn
š¤·āāļø ESTIMATED READING TIME: THIRTY EIGHT MINUTES
Disclaimer:
Everything below is a mix of what I observed and heard during the event. The goal isnāt to pinpoint "who exactly said what," but to share (usually) an outsider's view and overall perspective on these industries. Iām not here to act as a definitive firsthand sourceāreaders should do their own research. I hope this inspires you to attend events, explore new industries, and hear what leaders are presenting. These notes combine my observations with thoughts on how things could run smoother and how ideas connect (IMO). Iām not an expert, you know? Just hanging out in the room with them. Enjoy!-
This lunch aimed to raise $200K for a local museumās education programs. They raised $500Kā¦ but letās talk about what was actually taught. From staged science skits to speeches packed with keywords but light on insight, the whole event left me wondering: whatās the curriculum?
Science presentation felt like toddler theater. Too dumb to blow a pinwheel? A rubber chicken. No substance.
City leadership speech included fake sleep-position psychology and inventor joke arc I didnāt get.
Every speaker had āhumble beginningsā which now feels like a script, not a story.
Heartbreaking moment on the way home: A child rejected emotionally and physically by her mom, right in front of me.
Topics: Creativity, Childrenās Education, Lower Income Opportunities, Alternative Education, Immersive Education, Experimentation, Traveling Shows, Fundraiser Lunch
This lunch is featuring big updates and requests from local leaders. To be honest, Iām not even sure what it is. I forget as I write this (Iāll copy/paste it onto the blog in the correct sectionā¦ thatās how I like to write this section of the blog, as often as I can remember. To try and make this part here my thoughts going in, what I expect 100% going in - my mindset, unexposed to the event at all!! And, well right now, I forgot the theme of this event š, but I know theyāre trying to raise something like 200k from the 400-500 attendees so they said. And associated with a local museum. So when I title this, itāll be AFTER I wrote this paragrph hahaha. Enjoy!
Why Attend? My goal is to hear what topics are being brought up to leadership of Seattle and what narratives are being pushed š. Do I agree?? Can I help!? Or do we wanna take a second look? IDK! Iād like to see this city thriving, alongside our nation, and globe!!! So, what are the plans? Letās find out!!! ANdā¦ on a scale of 1-10 how much do you think theyāll be serving boiled chicken? Hahahah. But, who can blame āem!! Itās cost-efficient and easy to make taste great.
Ratings: Venue: 4/5, Food: 3/5, Speaker Content: 2.5/5, Networking: 2.5/5, Likeliness to Return: 3/5
Photo Collage and Commentary:
NOTES FROM THE EVENT:
Also, my way home was so sad. I saw a very upsetting situation between a mother, daughter, and lady. Iāll write about it later too. I talked with Ai about it and these were some of the notes it said about what I saw. (Again Iāll write more below at the end, but here is a preview)
A child trying to hold on to her anchor.
A mother trying to manage a handoffāmaybe out of survival, or routine, or detachment.
A system where care is outsourced, and presence is interrupted, and the childās reality becomes the collateral.
Her body responded to that emotional chaos with a physical fall.
ā¦ and yesā¦ I AM behind on 4 blogs at this point. Cause Iāve been on an insane mission to work on the pre-white house ai initiative!! And make Ai content for kids, but ALSO get this website fabulous for traffic, etc.
so YEAH next week Iām onā¦ yeah I donāt even want to type itā¦ a haitus. Yes, I did spell that word wrong first try. Itās spelled (?) hiatus close. And obvious at second glance.
NOW - yeah. Next week Iām doing NO EVENTS next week, taking most of it to recallobrateā¦ then attending the event on literally āwhats the purpose of your lifeā its like, the theme of that event hahaha.
So next week, I am just arounding a bit again, since my gym was a chatastrophe and a half. Kinda just more of the nonsense/environment iām trying to freaking take one break from an hour a day time to time hahaha. Alright?
nope.
But yes. I will take next week to keep catching up on essnetials, then attend the event on our' lifeās purpose, then weāll see how its going. I have a few other events after that.
ALSOOOO - about this weekend? My speech Iām supposed to give, the thing I keep donating my time and efforts for and got approached to give a speech to - turns out they didnāt know Iām giving a speech? And maybe didnāt plan for it? Somehow that all got lost, though I was introduced to the group in teh first place under the request to present. So, we find out tomorrow.
Yeah. hahah. So MAYBE I give a live speech this weekend. If not, Iāll record it. NOW - lemme go do other stuff, and then Iāll get back to this blog soon and write my notes on how it was!!! It wasā¦ idk what word to say. Iād sayā¦ stereotypical - to sit the fence with my description.
For this one, Iām not sure how many comments I even want to leave. Letās use the excuse: Iām behind on so many other blogs. Alright? For this one. Just going to write down the notes I took and leave it here. No additional comments for this one - until we talk about the situation with the mom and a āfriend(?)ā at the end.
OKAY: So below are my notes. I wonāt add anything extra now, but youāll see in there I did have a few comments of my own. And btw - I just got an email. This event raised 500k in total for the museum!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeesh. Hope they spend it with integrity!!!
A woman gets on stage and begins. No one is listening to her.
āThousands of students attend to learn, discover, and think criticallyā
The next two speaker high five on stage, the guy says heās the hype guy and so hype will intensify.
So far theyāve raised 142k from sponsors.
This is to pay for Summer Camps, science on wheels, immersive experiencesā¦ I could go on, but II wonāt.
Lots of huge leaders are getting too fried and tired these days. Theyāre here today.
The next lady is a ātransitional research speakerā
what is this?
she says āumā a million times.
SHeās working to expand STEM education for the community
Develop and bring novel stuff to kids with cancer.
Deeply committed to STEP education
She was the first in her family to graduate college, 1 of 2 in her high school to go to college.
I feel like they always find people to lead things with humble beginnings, so grateful for this opportuntiy, easier to persuade.
Her speech has no emotion.
She says her science teachers were the best. They were a couple. And now because of them, and because of this, all kids can have access to science and STEM education. Access to discovery, creativity, exploration.
I lost my attention with her cause I feel sheās so rushed.
Next lady drops her speech when walking up then makes a self-depricating joke.
She says she grew up in the city. It is super hard to hear it.
Nope - sheās introducing the next guy. She says he grew up in the city, now heās one of the biggest leaders. Heās lead many terms now and is reelected. Heās also biracial.
Welcoming him up, she hardly pronounces his last name. IDK it and canāt hear it. lol.
She says theyāve known each other for decades
NEXT SPEAKER: LOCAL CITY LEADERSHIP
He says he is impressed with her because sheās memorized his background. Everyone else should do the same, not read it off their phones or paper. She actually introduced him well.
He says his voice is missing from the speech āhis people prepared for himā so heās going ot go off script and addlib a bit.
He wants to ground in the quote, āEducation is the passport to the future. The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.ā -
LOL this is the quote that my favorite Youtube Prepper/Doomer always says hahahah, āDemcad" omg. Not what you expect to hear from our leaders!!!!! Just youtube preppers that overreact, right???
There are three important buckets: Imagination, Affirmation/Stimulation, and Values
Imagination:
He talks about his family (now this story he told made NO sense). He says he wants to get hte family car and drive people around his his free time. His wife says youāre a young (??). Then he says he had an idea for a warehouse where everything is for sale in bulk, maybe we can name it costco.
I donāt get this joke at all.
Now he says he wants to rent out his house, says he invented airbnb.
Everyone laughs.
Great ideas are simple but powerful with stimulation.
Thatās what the experience is about. The best ideas. Thatās why this city and country are so great.
So smart and innovative.
Stimulation. We must stimulate the leaders. Some say affirmation, I say stimulation.
Now, there are four categories. How do you sleep? Side sleepers, back sleeper (like me, he says, i sleep like iām in a coffin), stomach sleepers, and twisters w/o a position.
Now, raise your hand if ____
He has the audience all identify how they sleep by raising their hands as he shouts out categories.
Back Sleepers have great self-restraint. The data is clear.
Side sleepers, data showsā¦ well, before I degrade you, let me tell you there is no truth to any of this. I made it up.
Look, as soon as I said something positive about you, you believe it. This is critical to self-esteem.
Values: life is about more than you.
I am a strong believe in affirmation.
Women earn 82 cents for every dollar.
Top CEOās are 90% men. Letās affirm women.
Affirm imagination.
You need a North Star.
The values of leaders are your north start.
We are proudly welcoming here. We celebrate diversity, equity, inclusion, ANY ANY ANY opportunity to stand for these values we will welcome. We were named after MLK, this county.
The values we hold is why we ae here.
Donāt worry City Center, Iām ready to give you love too. Youāre ready to see, not a merge, thatās a legal term.
Weāre a city of innovation. Forward thinking.
Weāve helped more than 143,000 students and 69% were lower income.
This is a new powerful partnership. Those are our values. We care about the underserved and underrepresented with our hearts. Thatās our values. Thatās why wer are here.
We are building a new reimagined courtyard.
In 2025 we are redefining this city.
He knows every big leader (donāt wanna name specifics) in the nation and talks to lawyers daily.
The old presidental administration loved him. THey invited hiim to special things, overseas to talk with leaders within the war. He was the only one at his level to do that, and to be honest, āIt made a brother feel pretty goodā.
A humble brag, but for a local boy from humble beginnings, this community has helped.
This is an influential city. An weāre just getting started.
Weāre asked of our favorite memories? Mine was an ice-breaker ceremony. And the game of the millenial. My team lost, but we all have our stories from here.
Letās celebrate rebirth and realignment at this center.
We believe in family, community, and we are simply the best!! āThanks for the laughs and education!ā
SCIENCE ON WHEELS
Every school and student now have access to science.
Letās watch a live performance of this wheels spectacular science experiment experience.
These entertainers have the tone of voice like theyāre talking to toddlers or elementary school kids.
Theyāre acting and doing their education routine. But the routine is so awkward.
They have these oversized suitcases and are acting out a scene where one girl wants to talk about science, the other wants to talk about her vacation, but theyāre like āfocus on the scienceā but then the science malfunctions and luckily the vacation supplies turn out to be sciencey.
Has anyone ever seen a windmill before?
The guy next to me is checking his phone. He tried to befriend me earlier, but idk.
This thing is so cheesy and weird.
They ask if anyone has ever heard of an engineer? What does an engineer do?
One audience member yells out that they fix things.
This is so annoying for adults. This fake hype and fake enthusiasm. I hate when people teach like this to kids. Itās so degrading, I feel. Like acting like theyāre stupid.
Bad taste for this 200k crowd!!
And her luggage has stuff in it. Oversized postcards with a windmill on it.
I canāt believe they pretend you donāt know what a windmill is??? lol. I guess for kids, okay. But even these days some windmills arent working well and theyāre being deisel powered, so its like, mention that too?
She pulls out a rubber chicken, a fin, and eventually a pinwheel.
Then the girl pretends she canāt make the pinwheel work no matter how hard or randomly she blows, she plays stupid.
Too stupid for blowing a pinwheel???
I feel like they couldnāt have picked anything worse. This is so cringey.
Now they want a volunteer from the audience, but they donāt pick one. Then everyone claps.
OMG what a lackluster presentation. SCIENCE lets you do anything!! We picked this???
Up next is the top dog of this place.
He says thank you, this is a crisis without our funding. Thanks to you all, we must support this. Itās so good to see you.
We have vision, leadership, we stand with you for inclusion, diversity, equity, accessā¦ we are with you! We stand with you.
Our board, weāre even actively recruiting. It is great to be here. Why here? We outgrew our usual place.
Thanks to our team and partnerships we have wonderful things to come.
SO much love for this room.
We want to ignight curiosity, experimentation, and critical thinking. We want to expand and diversify.
We want to inspire guests for generations to be curious and think critically. Foundations of a healthy ecosystem and society.
Our nation is at a fight, for science, curiosity and critical thinking.
We want to fight well with your help.
A new app will be created for people of all ages to design, test, build, and learn from failure. Failure is part of progress. A beacon of refreshing experiences.
Letās restore the environment, preserve the courtyard. Connect everything.
The portal between downtown and the rest of downtown.
Better prepared than ever thanks to the gov officials. āI love the peopleā
Before 1962 the leaders wrote that service belongs to people, all people. It springs from curiosity and develops in thoughtful conversations.
The people we work for are celebrated.
He says heās so proud and grateful to take part in getting students excited.
This is about STEM, Stem Careers, and the people we serve.
This is a great place for learning with hands-on experience.
Make time to come by, there is something for everyone. Itās so nice to see the sparkle in a kidās eye. Here, curiosity and education flourish.
Next he reads testimonials:
Super engaging for all ages and adults with fun since.
I love the butterfly exhibit.
I love to learn about nature and curisosity.
Itās interactive and engaging, you learn by trying different things.
Science helps us understand things.
Our society needs science to solve problems. Critical thinking
Get kids involved early so they have it for hteir whole life.
The audience claps.
Our high poverty status, we introduce hands-on immersion. Engaging interactive experiences like this.
We expose them to future career opportunities. Now opporutities not available otherwise.
Our work changes lives and depends on community support.
I came from a poor family, from poverty. I spent my formaitve years in oppression.
Many of you are here becuase this intersts you. Please make a donation in curiosity, advocacy, experimentation, and more.
This beaker on the sreen shows how much weāve raised so far. Everyone, find it in you to donate. You will be matched by sponsors if your donation is over $500.
-The guy next to me donates $500. The lady to my left donates $2500.
The guy next to me said he wants to help invest in building a mini city for kids. Like a miniature city for kids to explore, like a wonderful theme park world. And build it downtown.
The woman next to me, she and I joked about the pencils. They had pencils that said āplant the seed of curiosityā today - with seeds inside of them. But I said you canāt erase with them (the eraser part is where the seed is).
I also almost joked, I canāt believe these weird seed-planting sticks are supposed to make people want to donateā¦but oh yeah - she gave $2500 just moments ago. So I didnāt say that aloud.
They yell out names as people donate.
Generous donors, matching pool.
I canāt even pronounce all the names but we have donations from $50 - 5,000.
Volunteers are walking around wearing butterfly headbands. Find them and theyāre collecting envelops and money. Now we will tally up the total and see how much we made.
NOTES DONE
On my way home, my phone died and so I had to charge it at the station near my home. There, I saw a woman who looked like me with a girl who looked like my daughter. The mom was on her phone nonstop and the daughter was eagerly looking to see who would arrive.
I thought they were waiting on a man, cuase the little girl was excited to see one particular man, and I even thought, hmm, that girl is WAY more excited than her mom to see him. I bet he feels that, but then it wasnāt him they were waiting for.
The charger for my phone wasnāt working, so I had to go find another. That had my walk by them and so randomly we said hi.
I kept charging my phone and then noticed huge happiness hit them, as a woman arrived. She walked up with bags in hand, and she was asian. The mom was so happy and the little girl was not. She was standing far from them. So tehn the mom bent down and asked the girl to run and hug the other lady, I think maybe a nanny or caregiver or friend? Or idk?
Instead, the baby ran to her mom. Like, no way, idk this lady, i want YOU!!
But then the mom got upset and embarrassed, refused the hug, and right when teh girl got tho her mom, the mom rejected it, but this caused the little girl to slip, almost banana peel style, and land directly on her head. She planted right from her feed SMACK on her head, right at her momās hands. All her mom would have had to do was reach out and accept that hug. Instead, she was frusterated her daughter wouldnāt hug this new person.
Her daughterās skull smashed onto the cement and she screamed. I think i cried aloud too then, and I cried after. I cried right there. I was sobbing, i tried to contain it, but it was so so so so so so sad to see. It was so sad to see. It was so obvious what was going on and that child was being completely ignored. She was so sad, her mom ignored her the whole time texting, the girl was so eager to see whoād arrive. Then the girl realized it was someone to replace her mom, she wanted reassurance from her mom, her mom rejected it, and then the girl smashed her head on cement so avoidably. It just made me so sad.
Itās like parents are right there but their kids arenāt even seen. You know? Just made me, again, realize how valuable and precious my time is with my daughter. Itās worth prioritizing and valuing.
These poor kids are handed off to nannies or care. And then theyāre blamed for overreacting. :( It was so sad when she hit her head. Her mom held her a bit and then they carried on. But, I just was so heartbroken for that girl and her sad situation and lack of emotional availability from anyone in her life.
OVERALL EVENT REVIEWS FURTHER ELABORATED:
Venue: 4/5, yeah! not bad, easy to get to. not a lot to say but not bad at all.
Food: 3/5, i mean, they served boiled chicken with quinoa and salad. the most classic ever.
Speaker Content: 2.5/5, just so many keywords over and over again!!! It was just so strange. I want to hear about the education practices? The topics? What are we teaching the kids besides how to blow a pinwheel? This is not longterm thinking to help these kids. They can learn about pinwheels any time. Itās just like, theyāre not impressing me: the educator!!!!!! THE KELLY TUTORS!!! The #1 fan of immersive awesome education. to really help kids learn and be successful in school, creating a better world, values, morals, confidence, self-worth, and problem solving. Kids are the future.
Networking: 2.5/5, not really. and i had an emergency before where i was on the phoen with the gym and they were being insane and so chat gpt told me to threaten with the attorney general, so i did in my email - LATER turns out one from either here or another state was at this lunch hahahah. See? I roll with my words.
Likeliness to Return: 3/5 - eeh.. IDK. If there was more educational content and interesting stuff, yes! But this just felt like a bunch of phrases over and over again. Iām a teacher, educator, mother, innovator, entprenrenuer - i wanna hear the logistics, ideas, details, methods, strategies, autthenticity, truth!! you know? Not just vague stuff.
Until next time, I wish you the motivation and success to search for opportunities around your area. Search and explore: Who is out there giving talks? There are new things happening all of the time.
Find relatable or interesting topics you like and check them out! Maybe even something hosted at a cool venue, if thereās no other reason to go. Letās see what you can learn and discover not too far from home. š
