The past few years have been filled with stops and goes. I remember the weeks of online school that closed in-person learning for over a year, and the rush of running from student council meetings to soccer practice to the library. I’ve learned a lot about myself, and I know that being busy, moving from one thing to another, may not be sustainable in the long run, but is a feeling that I’ll be chasing for the rest of my life.
The months leading up to Enloe Charity Ball are just that for me, a green light. After elections in the fall, when we are assigned committees and tasks and events, I find myself spurred into action. I see it on the faces of my peers and it is evidenced through their volunteer efforts, and the efforts of the people that love them; their parents who drive them to events, their friends who join them at fundraisers, and their family who donate.
At the beginning of the season, a switch is flipped in the lives of student council members. I know I speak for all of us when I say every free moment is spent sending emails, coordinating canvassing, making graphics/banners, and, most importantly, spreading the message of Charity Ball. I love spending time in class talking about the events we put on, like kickball, caroling, and Art for a Purpose, and how those events benefit the people in our community through our beneficiary (much to the annoyance of my friends who have heard my spiel over and over again). But it matters, and each year I find myself working with a charity that matters to me and my community.
When I drive to school, as many of my friends in first period know, I’m always running late, always rushing to help my brother in the car and to class. I leave my house at the same time every day, and whether I’m on time to first period or have to walk in, late and embarrassed and out of breath from running down the hallways, it all depends on one light; one light outside of my neighborhood that is minutes long. Whenever I see a green light, I know that I’ll make it to school on time and I speak from the heart when I say I’m overwhelmed with relief. But the “green light” at the beginning of the Charity Ball season means so much more to me; it fills me with joy, energy, and purpose. I become truly alive with purpose at the start of each Charity Ball season.
I am so incredibly thankful, for the people that came before me and created Enloe Charity Ball, as well as the student council members I work with every day to create a better world, full of more green lights than red.
Alice Campbell
Junior Class President