Enloe charity ball bounces back from pandemic to raise $160,000 to help homeless teens
Enloe High School has bounced back from the coronavirus pandemic to raise $160,000 to support a non-profit group that’s helping homeless teens and other young people in crisis in Wake County.
Last weekend’s 2021 Enloe Charity Ball was capped off by Enloe’s student council presenting a $160,000 check to Haven House Services. The celebration at Marbles Kids Museum in Raleigh marked the triumphant return for an event that has raised more than $1 million for local charities in the past decade alone.
“It was marvelous that we were able to raise $160,000,” said Siri Dronavalli, 17, a senior at the Raleigh magnet school who handled the publicity for the ball. “We called this a rebuilding year, so next year they will be ready and stoked for the 2022 charity ball.”
The Enloe Charity Ball has become a major fundraising event. In 2019, students raised a record $207,000 to support Southeast Raleigh Promise, a group trying to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty.
Plans for the 2020 ball were put on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic, which shut down in-person learning for Wake County high school students for a year.
Raising money to help teens in crisis
In February, ball organizers announced they had chosen Haven House out of a field of 28 applicants to be this year’s charity recipient. Located in Raleigh, Haven House helps more than 1,200 youth each year that are experiencing homelessness, in a crisis, or in trouble at home, school or in the community.
“There are Enloe students who’ve used Haven House Services,” Dronavalli said. “They’re better students, better peers because of it.”
This year’s goal was to raise at least $150,000 to help Haven House renovate its main office facility, which is near the intersection of Spring Forest Road and Falls of Neuse Road in Raleigh.
Organizers had the challenge of working with students who didn’t have as much familiarity with the ball because of the disruption that COVID has had on learning. But Nate Barilich, director of the Enloe Charity Ball and an English teacher at the school, said students quickly organized and pulled the ball off, which included multiple fundraising events before last weekend’s celebration.
“We didn’t raise $207,000 like we did in 2019,” Barilich said. “But for them to do what they did was remarkable. They fulfilled their promise to Haven.”
