KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Brooklyn Stewart is is in disbelief as she prepares to head to Washington D.C. for the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
"I don't believe it either," Brooklyn, a 14-year-old eight-grader at St. Elizabeth School in Kansas City, Missouri, said. "It's still not setting in."
While it's a new challenge for her, spelling comes easy.
"I do have favorite words that have kind of stuck out to me," Brooklyn said. "Synesthesia — this is my favorite word. It has 11 letters."
Now, she's adding to her list of words.
"What my mom and I do is we make quizlets and then we print out all the words," Brooklyn said, "and cut some paper-cutter and basically do a matching game. It's pretty cool."
As she quizzes at the Kansas City Public Library, Brooklyn is getting ready to take the national stage.
"I know that everyone there is super capable," she said, "and then my mom says I could definitely do it. It's me versus 200 other me's that are also studying very very hard."
When Brooklyn isn't hitting the books for studying, she's making sure her fellow students have the tools they need to succeed in school.
"Brooklyn's Backpack Drive is a project I do where I collect backpacks, school supplies and money for the Salvation Army Children's Shelter," Brooklyn said.
It's a project that started small when she was 5 years old and it's grown "from like eight backpacks to getting over 300 consistently for a year, with even more money in offseason," Brooklyn said.
She said the reason why she does it is simple — to help people.
"Everyone should have what they need for school," Brooklyn said. "I like learning and, even if school is not always the most enjoyable for me, I understand that learning and going to school, not everybody can have the tools for that, and it's very important for everybody to get an education."
Now, Brooklyn is taking the tools she's gathered and heading to the nation's capital to compete.
"I think it's going to be an awesome experience," she said. "This is kind of a big dream come true."
