Kellie Spann organized a 5K FunRun to raise money for homeless veterans as her senior project. She raised $109.31 that was donated to the Veteran Support Organization. In her letter, she explains that her older brother inspired her project by serving in the army and now working to help veterans. She found in her research that over 250,000 veterans experience homelessness each night in the US. While organizing and fundraising did not appeal to her, she still wants to help people in need. However, she found the senior project excessively stressful due to other life decisions like college applications and soccer commitments.

1. 1550 Owens Store Road
Canton, GA 30115
April 18, 2012
Judges, Senior Project
Creekview High School
1550 Owens Store Road
Canton, GA 30115
Dear Judges:
My name is Kellie Spann. I am an identical twin, so I am an expert when it comes to
competitiveness. I have played soccer since I was 5 years old, and I run for a hobby. I
have always been the type of person who likes to help people in need, and I hope to
always be able to do that. My older brother, Chris, was drafted into the army when I was
2 years old and is now working as an ex-military intelligence manager at Tobyhanna. He
inspired me to want to do something to help veterans, so for my Senior Project I
organized a 5K FunRun to raise money for homeless veterans. I donated all the money I
raised to the Veteran Support Organization (VSO).
My product is the actual race. My research paper is about society’s neglect upon veterans
when they come home from oversees and how this issue causes them to become
homeless. In order to help raise money for the homeless veterans, I decided organizing a
5K race is the ideal thing to do because running is what I enjoy to do, and I can raise
money at the same time. During my research, I discovered that on any given night, over
250,000 veterans will be homeless in the United States. I also learned that 26% of
America’s entire homeless population is homeless veterans. In the end, I raised $109.31
to donate to the Veteran Support Organization.
My topic and my research relates to more than one career: fundraising, organizing, and
charitable aiding. After this project, I have come to realize that helping people in need is
definitely something I enjoy and something that I am very skilled at. Although the
organizing and fundraising components of my project did not appeal to me, I still intend
to stretch out my hands and help people in need any way I possibly can throughout my
life.
I think the senior project is a great idea to allow students to get an experience of what
they think they want to do before they go to college for it. However, this project has been
exceedingly stressful for me this year because I have had an overwhelming amount of
decisions to think about and quite a few situations to figure out. I have been in soccer
year-round; I applied for several colleges, having to write completely different essays for
each application, as well as applying for several scholarships for which I also had to write
a different essay for each one. Once I received my acceptances and denials, I had to think
tirelessly about deciding on which college to attend, and whether or not my parents can
afford certain colleges, whether or not it would be more efficient to live at home or on

2. campus, whether or not I need to bring a car with me if I do choose to live on campus,
and so forth. Once I made all of those decisions, I had to sign up for orientation, apply for
housing, file my immunization form, etc. I had too much deal with this year, and I felt
like the senior project was just one more worry on a pile of endless concerns. I think if
this project was assigned to me during a previous high school year, when I did not have
life-changing decisions to worry about, then it would not have been as stressful. Thank
you for generously volunteering your time.
Sincerely,
Kellie Spann