I look forward to the moment that the check is revealed on December 7. The 2019 Enloe Charity Ball check, made out to the Southeast Raleigh Promise. While others in the crowd will see it, clap, and go back to dancing, I’ll be cheering because I know the lasting impact it will have and the struggle to get there. I’ll be cheering, looking up at the check, knowing how much it’ll mean to every family in Southeast Raleigh helped. For others, it’ll be just a few moments out of dancing, but for our student council, it’ll be the culmination of our tireless efforts. Every day, we have worked harder and harder to raise money, volunteer and publicize about what Enloe Charity Ball means to us. Every day, we strive to raise a little more money than we did yesterday, to volunteer a little more than we did yesterday— and in the process, Enloe Charity Ball itself means more and more to us.
I didn’t expect it to happen, but throughout fundraising, volunteering, canvassing, publicizing— Enloe Charity Ball is a part of me. With each passing moment, like a snowball, it continues to accumulate meaning. Each memory digs deep, like volunteering at Trunk or Treat at the Southeast Raleigh YMCA on Halloween and seeing each excited Spiderman or Princess Elsa smile up at me and ask for some candy. Or visiting the YMCA just last week and seeing the halls students walk, the courts the kids play ball in, and the classrooms they love.
The check presented to SERP will allow them to be better than they have in the past. To inspire more children to become leaders, thinkers, revolutionaries. To broaden their horizons. To push them to do, say, and think the impossible and make that their mission.
Enloe Charity Ball helps me to be better than I was in the past. Before starting high school, I would have scoffed at the idea of teenagers raising so much money or making such a big impact on somebody. But this mission allowed me to see that it was possible, so long as you did it with purpose and passion. Last year, we raised $205k for the Autism Society of North Carolina. This year, I see my peers on student council, both new and old, working even harder to surpass that goal. To be better than we were last year.
Together with my student council, I can be alive with purpose. A little more purposeful than yesterday. Working a little harder than yesterday. Making more memories every day.
Ending intergenerational poverty starts with the children of Raleigh. And that starts with today. Not yesterday— just better than yesterday.
Rohan Tapiawala
Communications Secretary
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