Everywhere around us there are numbers. They tell us our weight, our grades, our popularity, and how much of everything we have. But, they don’t represent our health, our insight, the value of our friendships, or our true worth at all. Similarly, just reading about Enloe Student Council’s goal of $120,000 does not accurately depict the impact that the money will have on our community or the obstacles that our student body will face in the process of raising it.
Raising twelve million pennies is no small feat, and neither is responding to the critical needs of 27,000 low-income Wake County residents; however, regardless of how challenging a job it is, Urban Ministries has been working relentlessly for the past thirty-five years to alleviate the struggles that these people are facing. But again, these are still just numbers. What do these numbers really mean?
Responding to the critical needs of so many parents, spouses, siblings, children, and individuals is more than just a statistic: it is inspiring. Urban Ministries devotes its time to the health, wellness, advocacy, and shelter of people whose poverty more often than not consists of homelessness. It is easy to tweet support or appreciation for institutions like Urban Ministries, but truly empathizing with and working for people who have dealt such a bad hand of cards is a completely different matter. It is easy to say that 27,000 people have it bad, but understanding the sheer complexity of these situations and working hard to find solutions is a completely different matter.
For those who choose to attend Charity Ball, their contribution goes to much more than a big check (with an even bigger number on it); any donation to Urban Ministries means that another person, whether they are a child or an adult, is on track towards a better life because they now have the resources to bring their goals to life. A donation to Urban Ministries is more than a number. A donation to Urban Ministries is a message to everyone everywhere that they, too, can be who they want to be, whenever they want to be it. Urban Ministries provides the hope that it is never too late, and Urban Ministries provides a sense of humanity that seems to be absent in the world at times. It is now time for us to spread that humanity at Enloe High School and beyond. If we are #AllInForUrbanMin, anything is possible.
Aashna Agarwal
Enloe Junior