THUNDER BAY – An international student says Thunder Bay still lives up to its monicker, the city with a giant heart, after residents contributed thousands in donations to help him continue studying here.
Abu Hena Mostofa Kamal says the more than $7,000 raised online, some from strangers, speaks to the city’s spirit.
“From day one, the people of Thunder Bay have been really generous, really kind,” he said. “That’s what happened when they saw an international student was going through a hard time – they stepped in.”
Kamal, a native of Bangladesh, learned earlier this year a sponsorship arrangement covering his tuition to study commerce at Lakehead University had fallen through.
He likely would have had to return home and abandon his educational dreams, he said, if a friend hadn’t encouraged him to launch a GoFundMe page online – something he was quite hesitant to do.
“I wasn’t really sure about that,” he said. “It’s a really embarrassing situation, going to GoFundMe especially. But she was like, just do it and see what happens.”
“What happened was that within a day, we reached our goal [of] $7,000.”
While he was unable to continue at Lakehead, where as an international student he would have to pay tuition fees of around $26,000 for the year, he was able to transfer to the business marketing program at Confederation College, where tuition is more affordable.
The funds raised essentially paid for one semester at the college, he said, buying him time to save money from a part-time job and return in the winter semester.
Kamal doesn’t relish the attention associated with the GoFundMe campaign, he said, but wanted to recognize what its success said about a city that often gets a bad rap.
“We all know that Thunder Bay has some issues, of course, but I always feel this city is filled with people who really have a generous heart,” he said.
He was particularly touched that many donations came from residents he had never met.
“That really showed me it was never about me, it was all about the generous city of Thunder Bay,” he said.
