[Kathleen Joyal]

The toughest thing for our team was that we lost our sponsors, and all financial backing. This is tough to get used to because we have always had money "handed" to us.
As a Mentor it was very tough (and still is) to get the students to participate in fundraisers! I have great fundraisers lined up for this summer where we can raise over $4,000.00 in two days, but I still can't get the kids to comit! It gets very frustrating for myself and my husband (who is the teacher) when we give up so much of our time to line up these fundraisers and work them (even our kids ages 5 and 8 work them with us) and we have kids who feel they are to busy to help with the team except when it comes to building the robot and going to the competition. I'm sorry that this sounds like complaining, my husband and I love the FIRST program and have been involved for over 10 years. We stay involved because if we were ever to take a year off there would be no team. There is no one else from the school willing to help out. What do other mentors do to motivate your students when it comes to fundraising?
All you students out there if you haven't done this already you should take a minute to thank your teacher for all that they do for you! With our team the kids always thank the engineers (which they deserve) but always forget about the teacher. It would make their day!
Again sorry for the complaining!