If you told me in 2018 that this is how I would spend my senior year, serving along with a dedicated and group of committed students, raising over 100k for charity, leading a cross country team as a captain, or even just talking and writing to corporations and stores, asking for their help, I wouldn’t believe you.
Picture a hesitant child in braces, beginning his freshman year of high school, barely making varsity of his cross country team, with no guidance or self-confidence to support himself. Seeing a group of students around my age raise over 200k for charity in 2018, not only inspired me to continue to push on with my life, stronger and ever. It’s a running inside joke that many cross country kids serve on Enloe Student Council, but seeing the older kids serve and help their community inspired me to not only follow in their footsteps. These members seemed to be actively engaged with any student on the team, always positive and always on the move throughout the school, achieving success wherever they went. One day, as I hobbled on the road attempting a seven-mile-long run, I was surprised to see a fellow runner on his phone working on a student council beneficiary letter while on a long run.
When I questioned why he insisted on dedicating himself to completing this letter, he simply said, “It needs to be done. Our goals won’t magically complete themselves. If I don’t give it my all, then it’s not worth trying.”
From then on, amazed by the amount of passion that the student council had, and I applied that mindset to all aspects of my life. Whenever my legs gave out, and I felt like quitting while running, I simply didn’t – my long run needed to be completed. Whenever I needed to complete long essays or advocate for racial equity in our theatre department, I never hesitated or struggled – the goal needed to be accomplished. I never feared losing or struggling to achieve captaincy of cross country, not running 5k in 17-something minutes, or not being elected on student council – I feared not dedicating myself enough to my goals. I feared falling short of my efforts, and not living up to what I could achieve. Now, looking back as a captain of the cross country team, a vocal member of an Enloe Arts committee that’s argued for racial representation in theatre, and an elected member of the student council, I am glad to have received this advice from a fellow student and am honored to be working alongside a hard-working and dedicated organization of students.
Now to whoever is reading this article, whether you are a freshman who’s just found their place on student council, one of the amazing members of student council currently serving with me, or one of our esteemed donors who have just contributed, or will contribute to our fundraiser goal – raising a goal of over 150k can and will be challenging. However, Haven House’s mission to help every youth receive the support and necessary resources they can to succeed is more than worth it, and together we can accomplish this.
But we’ve done this over seven times already and we will do this again.
And we do this because it needs to be done.
James Hung
Senior Class Advisor