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Raising Money Towards a Dream to Interlochen Arts Academy

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“I want to go to Interlochen and I want to grow up to be a famous writer, and get my books into the New York selling list.”

Eleven-year-old Betty Cordner has big dreams of becoming a published author.

“Creativity is, it’s important…When you write you get to make stories and then add back stories and add whatever you want and it can be like anything!”

Her mother, Brenna Cordner, tells us how this dream came to be, “Ellory, her best friend, was talking about Interlochen and how she wanted to apply. Betty decided she wanted to go.”

After submitting her work, she was accepted into Interlochen’s summer writing program.

Brenna says, “I told her we didn’t budget for that this year, if you want to go you have to make it happen yourself. Having no idea how much it actually cost.”

So Betty did what she knew best– she got creative.

Taking it upon herself to do whatever she can to get to her goal.

Betty says, “I need $6,475 to go. I got about 4,000. If I didn’t raise the money myself, it wouldn’t be my intentions to go to Interlochen, it would be somebody else’s to send me. If I didn’t raise this money myself, then it would just be bad, it would be spoiled, honestly.”

Shocked at how much the community has supported her…

With a big smile Betty says, “A complete stranger just comes up to a girl playing the ukulele wanting to go to Interlochen, and gives her $402…I think that’s amazing.”

“The woman who came by and threw that money in, the $402, and disappeared into the abyss. I’d like to thank her because the momentum that she’s gained from that, and knowing a complete stranger was like yes you can do this! I mean it gave her wings,” says her mother.

Betty’s not too far off from her goal and a bright future ahead of her.

She says, “If I go to Interlochen then I’ll get a lot more opportunities and I’ll get to have more connections probably and connections are everything.”

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