A Japanese Experience

Hi, my name’s Jody Reynolds and my son wants to go on a school trip to Japan with his Japanese class. The trip costs $4000 and I need to pay half of this. I can’t afford $2000 because I have three other kids with my new wife; a six-year-old daughter and two-and-a-half-year-old twin boys. My wife stays at home to look after the boys and I go to work. I’m a high school teacher. It’s not the world’s most lucrative profession and money’s tight. But I think it would be great if my son could go on a school trip to Japan, so I’m appealing to the New Zealand crowdfunding community to donate to this cause.

“Why doesn’t he do his own fundraising?” I hear you asking. And a very good question it is. So let me explain. My son lives with my ex-wife in Australia and attends his local private boys’ school. I asked him if he was doing any fundraising for his trip at school. He told me no. He said that they do fundraising at school for starving kids in Africa, but not for school trips. Parents pay for those. So now you see my dilemma.

Creating my own crowdfunding campaign wasn’t my first fundraising idea, but the others didn’t work out. My son is travelling over from Australia to visit us in the summer holidays. He plays the violin and I suggested he could bring his violin over with him and do some busking in the week before Christmas. I thought he could learn some Christmas carols. People love Christmas carols in the week before Christmas. However, my son and his mother weren't keen on that idea because the violin is expensive and they were concerned the twins would damage it. I don't blame them. The twins are animals. They like to throw rocks at things. They throw rocks on the lawn, rocks on the trampoline, rocks on the kitchen floor, rocks at their sister, and rocks at their parents and each other. Lately, they’ve been obsessed with throwing rocks at my car. Usually, the rocks they throw are pretty small, and the problem is manageable, but last week, one of them picked up a great big bloody rock, about the size of his head, and threw it at my car. It smashed the tail light. I shudder to think what it would have done to an expensive violin.

My son is an awesome kid; intelligent, enthusiastic, motivated, quirky and personable. He’s obsessed with Japanese culture, absolutely loves it, except for the parts that involve killing whales and eating sushi with fish in it. But the rest of it; sushi without fish, anime, manga, robots, awkward social hierarchies – you name it, he’s into it. When he grows up, he wants to live in Japan and work as an engineer.

I realise that “Overworked and underpaid father can’t afford to send privileged son on private school trip to Japan” is all a bit first world problemish and might not make the most compelling headline for a crowdfunding campaign, and I am all too aware there are far more worthy causes here on Givealittle, but I was hoping that maybe someone out there in internetland might feel sorry for me, and as a bonus, I’m absolutely willing to spice it up a bit with some sort of pledge challenge. I thought I could run a marathon, but then I remembered that I @!#$ing hate running. I could do some press ups, but I’d have to do the ones where you go off your knees because I can’t really do the proper ones. I like riding my bicycle, and I thought I could ride it up a really big hill or something. I’d happily do that. Or shave my head. I would be totally prepared to shave my head. Since it’s now Movember, I could shave my head, AND grow a handlebar moustache. In fact, I could shave my head, grow a moustache, AND ride my bike up a really big hill. Anyway, let me know if you have any better ideas in the comments section.

I do want to make it very clear that this is not about me, but rather about my son and his trip to Japan.

Thank you for your support! We really appreciate it.