UPDATE APRIL 19: This project closed with a whopping $24,534 funded. That is almost 30 times the original amount requested, and the mom in charge has widely been reported to be a millionaire. This doesn’t pass the smell test. Rich folks — send your own kids to camp instead of duping others into giving you 24 grand.
Remember being nine years old? Who can forget the millions of fantastic ideas you had every day, the limitless energy, those mean older siblings who told you that you weren’t good enough, and raising $15, 000 in a project to prove them wrong.
Wait a second. No, there was no 15 grand back in our day. Kids these days…
Mackenzie Wilson is, however, a Grade 3 who has the fortune of living that money padded life now.
“My name is Mackenzie Wilson and I’m 9 but because you have to be 18 to have a project on Kickstarter, I’m partnering with my mom, Susan Wilson, who told me to say she’s 29 but I made her a birthday cake last week so I know she’s 43,” she explains in the online profile which you can check out here.
After her older brothers told her that she couldn’t be a role playing game developer, she and her mother started a Kickstarter campaign to raise the $829 needed to attend RPG STEM camp.
Of course, one look at her Kickstarter page (started under her mother Susan’s name to circumvent the 18+ age requirements of the online community) and it is clear that she has the kind of parents who would do the entire science fair project and put the kid’s name on it to ensure an A+. I’ve yet to see a real life 9-year-old make a tongue-in-cheek joke about their mother’s age like Mackenzie does in her opening preamble, but hey, maybe kids have gotten wittier since my day.
The campaign to get Mackenzie to camp went viral and surpassed the $829 mark by a long shot, and as of press time the donations are at $14,878.
What exactly a 9-year-old is going to do with that much money is anyone’s guess, although we’re sure that Mom is probably pretty grateful for the windfall of cash.
Join the conversation with us on Twitter and Facebook and let us know what you think. Should there be limits to campaigns like this? Do you think mom and dad will use the money as intended for their daughter’s tech education? What the heck will a 9-year-old do with that much cash?
