Here's why I need help:
My name is David Needham and I'm a senior multimedia major at Bradley University in Peoria, IL. I first started using Drupal last August for an e-commerce project in a web design class. I used the Ubercart module for the e-commerce side, and became fairly fluent in Drupal and the Ubercart module. My professor (Steven 'Sven' Merrill) told me about Drupal Camp WI, and last month we drove to Milwaukee from Peoria to present training seminars on our own individual projects (mine being Ubercart). Sven and his colleague are now signed up to give a presentation at Boston over their awesome new ideas of Druplex and Druplash (drupal + flex, flash).
I desire greatly to attend the Boston conference to cheer on my professors and learn everything I can absorb. Unfortunately, our department does not have a budget for students to go to events like this so I'm in a tight spot. I have a couple small jobs, but as a college student I'm operating on a very fixed income. I've even recently taken on a freelance gig involving Drupal to help fund my trip. At this point, however, I am still very much short and it's looking like I may not be able to get enough to go.