Mom panhandles for son's tuition money

[Buttercup]

Wash. mom begs for son's tuition money


Shelle Curley begs at a Bellevue freeway off-ramp for money to pay for her son's tuition at a prestigious dance school.



Story Updated: Sep 7, 2009 at 4:31 PM MDT


By Theron Zahn 2news.tv



BELLEVUE, Wash. - A mother's love knows no end. Now one single mom on the east side is going to extremes - so her son can follow his dream.


People driving through Bellevue may see her on the streets - begging on freeway ramps for money to pay her son's tuition at a prestigious dance school.

For D.J. Strong it's the chance of a lifetime. His dance teacher is amazed at his talent after just a year in the studio.

"He has captured all the technique and all of the charisma," says Carolyn Farrar of the Premiere Dance Center.

Seventeen-year-old Strong recently got accepted to one of the most prestigious dance schools in the country.

"I cried. I was shaking," says his mother, Shelle Curley.

She wasn't about to let her son's big break slip away. But even after a $45,000 scholarship, the unemployed single mom was thousands of dollars short.

"We'd do whatever it took to get him there," she says.

That's why she's begging on a freeway off-ramp in Bellevue.

"Tuition help needed," she says to motorists who drive by. "Donate a few dollars. Help a boy live his dreams. ... Help a young man go to college."

"It doesn't make sense to me not to do it," she told KOMO News. "It should be automatic. You should go to the ends of the earth for your children."

But getting a profitable spot can be tough.

"And the one corner you have to fight for," she says. "So I've been in several verbal altercations with some of the people up there fighting for that spot."

Curley says she has made up to $45 an hour on one off-ramp.

Her son says he doesn't like seeing his mom out in the rain in just flip-flops.

"I feel pretty nervous when she does that," D.J. says.

But he knows why she's there.

"It shows me that she really loves me a lot and really believes in me, and will do anything like beg on the side of a freeway," he says.

A mom giving her son a future ... a few dollars at a time.

[121Traffic]

Oh man, that kid better be pulling double shifts at McD's or something if his mom's doing that. Any job would do!

[Buttercup]

Oh man, that kid better be pulling double shifts at McD's or something if his mom's doing that. Any job would do!

I was thinking the same thing. I also wonder how her job search is going if she's panhandling and getting tax-free money all day. And I wonder if the son has tried to get need-based student loans.

[Five-0]

A lot easier and safer to apply for grants.

[Buttercup]

A lot easier and safer to apply for grants.

You know, you're right.

[jmur5074]

A local paper recently interviewed a ton of pan handlers, watched them for multiple days, interviewed people who give to them, etc.


Those suckers can make BANK. Some of them (around here anyway) get around $200.00 every day they go pan handling. It's all in technique and appearance apparently.

That, or it's just another case of "Minnesota Nice"

[Dirk]

That, or it's just another case of "Minnesota Nice"

No such thing. People from Minnesota are yankee assholes.

[Ducky]

Normally I'd say wonderful, great, this kid can go on to be a doc or cure cancer or something, but this is a dance college. Huh?

[Jenna]

Her son should audition for American Idol--if he wins he'll have enough money to pay for dance school, and if not he might realize that dancing isn't for him and save a lot of time and money!

[121Traffic]

Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I think actually panhandling is unnecessary. If you're homeless and unqualified, fine. If you're a laid off member of a blue or white collar work force, you're qualified or over-qualified for plenty of things. The world needs plenty of fry cooks...she just doesn't want to be one. Why make minimum wage when you can suckle off the teat of guilty people on the off ramp and make three times as much?

[CTR man]

Where is this kid going to? Julliard? Never heard of this other place that they claim he is going to.

Her son should audition for American Idol--if he wins he'll have enough money to pay for dance school, and if not he might realize that dancing isn't for him and save a lot of time and money!

American Idol is for singing, but I get the gist of what you are saying here, Jenna. I believe the correct program that he should be auditioning for is "So You Think You Can Dance"