Perhaps the most daunting barrier to addressing poverty in the long-term is education accessibility. Without the resources to do well in school, how can kids be expected to feel motivated enough to reach their full potential? This is the issue that Neighbor to Neighbor is committed to solving through a one-on-one mentorship program, and though they have made amazing headway, there are many more kids whom they hope to reach. It is through their partnership with Enloe Charity Ball that they, and many other independent nonprofits, seek to expand their impact.
My name is Alex Gilliland, and I am a current junior at Enloe Magnet High School in Raleigh, NC. This is my third year helping to organize Charity Ball, which is a fundraising effort to raise awareness of Raleigh nonprofits that culminates in our annual Winter dance. Over past years we have supported Haven House and Alliance Medical Ministry, and have set out this year to raise $165,000 for Neighbor to Neighbor.
What is most often highlighted in our fundraising effort is not the amount of money raised, but the ways in which we interact with beneficiaries. All fundraising events are entirely student-led, organized by a council of 67 high schoolers. It is because of this that we hold many school events in order to raise money from ticket sales, as well as participate in community fundraising events like caroling. Of course this makes the process very fun for everyone involved, providing plenty of opportunities for the rest of the school to take part and make connections with the nonprofit. In fact this has led to many of my own favorite memories in Charity Ball.
But what truly makes Charity Ball stand out lies not in the fun and unique nature of our fundraising, but in transitions: the transition of leadership among a new class of seniors each year, the transition of the ever-changing needs of Raleigh, and the transition in our responses to them.
The transition between leadership each year is especially notable because it also proves a challenge, as no leadership team is able to continue their commitment through a second year before graduating. Though this makes it difficult for one person to effect change in subsequent years, it opens up the process for change by the following leaders. People who have worked behind the scenes in past years can therefore apply their outside perspective to improving the fundraising effort, allowing for more effective experimentation. The changes that these leadership transitions encourage have been largely responsible for Enloe Charity Ball’s continued growth, and has proven to be a hidden strength of the student-led nature of the organization.
Other transitions lie not within Charity Ball but in the community that we serve. Because Charity Ball supports a new beneficiary each year, we are better equipped to adjust to the needs of Raleigh than other organizations. This has been most evident in our transition out of COVID, as we shifted to support organizations that addressed relevant issues like healthcare for working, uninsured adults and housing accessibility for teens. Our choice to support Neighbor to Neighbor was similarly guided by the needs we saw in the community, but also by a desire to connect with students like ourselves. Such transitions to new beneficiaries have therefore allowed students to address the pressing issues that they are most passionate about.
With new beneficiaries, we also restructure the fundraiser events to better support them. Since Neighbor to Neighbor is more directly focused on local kids than past beneficiaries, we have repurposed our annual “Mini Charity Ball,” which is typically thrown for a single elementary school, so that it will be thrown for the kids actually involved in their one-on-one mentorship program all over Wake County. Over the past few years, Enloe Charity Ball has also made efforts to increase the volunteering that we do with the beneficiaries to more holistically support their missions. Becoming more personally involved with Raleigh nonprofits in these ways have been made possible by the yearly transitions in the activities we plan.
The importance of these transitions has become increasingly obvious to me as the Fall comes to a close, marking my involvement in three Charity Ball seasons that have each been different from the last. I have no doubt that transitions will continue to play a vital role in my final year, proving that the success of Charity Ball is not despite its student leadership, but instead strengthened by it.
Alex Gilliand