Opportunity Park by Kelly

Opportunity Park by Kelly - June 2026 Scholarship Essay

As a freshman at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, my first year has definitely been an experience. The biggest thing I took away is college is expensive and isn’t affordable for many families such as mine. College is a privilege everyone should get to experience once in their lifetime. This is a place where you can grow and find out what your interests are and find out what kind of person you are meant to be. It’s upsetting that the cost of college is a huge factor on individuals missing out on these experiences. This leads me to my project, If I were to design a project it would be an amusement fair. This fair would be called "Opportunity Park”, it sounds a bit silly or a bit of a stretch.
The sole goal of Opportunity Park will be to focus on helping students who are struggling to pay for college. The fair participants will have to pay for tickets to go on these rides and games. It will also have a donation booth/center where donations are collected. All the money that is earned from the fair activities, along with the donations will be turned into different scholarship opportunities for the students from that same community. This fair would benefit everyone in the community, where students will be able to find funding for school, kids will have fun activities to do, and where parents could help out or have fun at the fair. The fair would take place once or twice a year, preferably during summertime where participation and community engagement will be maximum: this would ultimately bring the community closer too.
Opportunity Park may seem like a far-fetched idea as I am typing right now but considering how hard it is to be able to afford college nowadays, if we take the idea as simple as it is and run with it, it would be a cool concept to see happen.