To everyone, there are four seasons in a year — spring, summer, winter, and fall. But the students of Enloe High School, there’s a fifth season that is also undoubtedly our favorite: Charity Ball season.
I have the privilege to enjoy the changing of seasons and the beauties each new time of the year brings. The weather changes — the flowers bloom, the leaves create a spectrum of colors, or the branches are covered in icicles. No matter what the conditions are like outside, I am also able to come back to my safe place: home. Whether it be the chance to hide under a house roof while it’s raining in the spring or snowing in the winter, I leave my house in the morning knowing that I can always return. My house does not move and that in itself provides me with a source of permanence and security. But for the people of the Wake Raleigh Partnership, they are given no choice but to be constantly on the move. They wake up every morning not knowing where they will sleep that night or even if they will have a place to sleep.
While I am able to enjoy the radiant sunshine in the summer, the people of the Wake Raleigh Partnership may not be able to get the adequate food and water to help them get through the scorching days. While I am able to enjoy making snow angels in the winter, the people of the Wake Raleigh Partnership may have no choice but to sleep under that blanket of snow that night.
For us, each new season brings new things to look forward to and that stems from our knowledge that no matter what we do, we always have a house to return to and a bed to sleep in. You could say that we don’t live in reality. But the people of the Wake Raleigh Partnership are reminded daily of their reality. Each new season brings more uncertainty and another set of changes that they are unprepared for.
During this Charity Ball season, I want to give the hundreds and thousands of people the relief they need so that they too can see another side of each season. With the $150,000, they will no longer have to view the changing of seasons as a threat but rather truly experience it as an example of mother nature’s beauty.
Amy Lin
Executive Council Member