One of the most popular and well-known dances held in Wake County high schools is Enloe’s Charity Ball. At the end of each school year, Enloe releases an application for beneficiaries to fill out and submit for consideration. The heads of the student council sort through all of the applications over summer, and the chosen cause or organization for the year is announced in fall.
For students and staff at Enloe, Charity Ball is perhaps the most anticipated and important time of the school year. The festivities and events are plentiful, and school spirit is at an all-time high.
“We have Space Jam where we invite local bands for a concert, we sell coffee on cold days, we have big fundraisers, we call restaurants, get big donations from large businesses, and you will see us walking around downtown putting up flyers and getting donations. The council kids will always be sending out emails and caroling and finding any means of spreading the word. We also make thousands of dollars from ticket sales,” said Yaseen Echekki, a sophomore at Enloe.
He is one of the many students who looks forward to the dance, festivities, and union of the school community to do something good in the world.
“The music is all run by a DJ. This year we had DJ Trellz, who gets the crowd all crazy,” said Echekki. “We have the Zanzibar room in Marbles full of drinks, assorted fancy desserts, water, and a crepe bar. We also bring our big donors who have a banquet at the top of Marbles.”
This year, Enloe chose to direct its proceeds to the Autism Society of North Carolina (ASNC). “We do a giant check presentation at the very end [of the ball], where the heads of our student council will show the giant check of how much money we raised for our beneficiary,” said Echekki.
According to him, the ball is an effective way of raising awareness and encouraging students to empathize with adversities others in their community face. “Other than the actual ball, my favorite part about charity ball is meeting the people that we are helping,” said Echekki. “We would go to the IGNITE center and have game nights and bond with the members of ASNC.”
Enloe students want the message and spirit of Charity Ball to extend to other Wake County Schools. While many students from other schools attend Charity Ball, Echekki doesn’t believe they are able to achieve the full sense of giving and community that the Enloe students and staff work hard to create. “A lot of other kids from other schools understand that we’re supporting a cause, but they don’t really understand the deeper aspect of it,” said Echekki. “They just see it as a really fun dance. Enloe kids understand how we [students] really have a large impact on the community.”
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