Enloe Charity Ball aims to raise $200K for Note in the Pocket

In its 20-year history, Enloe Charity Ball, Enloe High School’s annual student-led fundraising initiative and nonprofit, has never missed a fundraising goal. 

Seniors Noe Roark and Shailen Fofaria, Enloe Charity Ball’s vice president of publicity and vice president of outreach, respectively, said this year’s goal of $200,000 is daunting, but they are on track to reach it with continued support from the community and a strong final fundraising push this week. If the students of the southeast Raleigh high school reach the goal for their chosen beneficiary, Note in the Pocket, they’ll mark Enloe Charity Ball’s 20th anniversary having raised more than $2 million total for local nonprofit groups in the last two decades.

“I’m staying optimistic,” Roark told the INDY in an interview at Sir Walter Coffee the week before Thanksgiving, joined by Fofaria, who is Enloe High School’s student body president. “But the pressure is on.”

In 2004, Enloe student Rachel Escobar launched the first charity ball event and raised $2,000 in one night. Since then (skipping 2020 due to the pandemic), Enloe Charity Ball has grown to incorporate as a nonprofit led by five student council representatives known as “the Big 5.” The Big 5 students chair committees for publicity, outreach, finance, volunteering, and day-of logistics, with each committee composed of more than a dozen students. Fundraising events take place beginning in October and culminate in the dance held each year at Marbles Kids Museum in mid-December that some 1,500 people attend. 

All Wake County high school students are invited to the ball, and the public can purchase tickets. Anyone and everyone is welcome to make a donation to the fundraising, which is managed by the North Carolina Community Foundation. Last year, Enloe Charity Ball raised $186,000 for affordable housing nonprofit CASA. 

This year, the students chose Note in the Pocket out of 13 community nonprofits who went through Enloe Charity Ball’s application process. Note in the Pocket, which is also celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, provides local students facing clothing insecurity full wardrobes of clothes with dignity and love. Each student gets 10 tops, five bottoms, brand-new socks and underwear, a pair of shoes, and a coat—enough to last two weeks.

Social workers identify students in Wake and Durham County schools who are in need of clothing and submit requests to Note in the Pocket with the personal preferences of the student. Trained volunteers choose clothing for each child as if they’re choosing gifts for them, a detail that Roark, who toured Note in the Pocket’s north Raleigh facility with other students in the fall, found touching. 

“Every bag of clothes that they give to a child is handpicked by a real person who’s received information about the child,” Roark explained. “So the child’s favorite color, or some things they like, if they like dinosaurs, or if they have an event coming up and need a fancy dress. . . . Each piece is personalized to the child, and they feel like they’re not just getting hand-me-downs but something they’d be truly excited to wear.”

Meg Carpenter, Note in the Pocket’s development director, said $200,000 will go a long way for the nonprofit at a time when the cost of living for local families continues to rise. They’ll be able to add two staff members to their 18-member team who will help fill a growing number of requests, cover operating expenses, and buy clothes when needed (most clothing is donated, though some specific sizes and styles are hard to keep in stock). 

“Families are trying to make their clothes last as long as possible, but that’s really hard for kids whose feet grow really fast, who just grow really fast in general and are running out of clothes to wear,” Carpenter said. 

Roark noted that the 27610 ZIP code in southeast Raleigh, where Enloe is located, is Note in the Pocket’s most-served ZIP code. 

“This organization is operating within our school, within our middle schools, within our elementary schools,” she said. “And we actually had no idea, because all of this work . . . is happening so subtly.”

Throughout the fundraising season, Enloe students volunteer with Note in the Pocket twice a week. They also participate in several school events to raise money in increments that make sense for high school students, explained Fofaria. 

To raise money this year, Enloe Charity Ball hosted basketball, kickball, and pickleball tournaments, a tournament based around the popular video game Clash Royale, a Trunk or Treat event, and an alumni social in honor of the ball’s 20th anniversary, among other events. After the ball, Enloe students will host a miniball for the students at Hunter Elementary School, a southeast Raleigh school that feeds into Enloe. 

“We were thinking, ‘What’s a fun way to get people who normally may not want to participate, and what’s something that’s so fun that they’d be doing anyway?” Roark said of planning the fundraising events. “So that’s what we came up with.”

This week, students will sell coffee and hot chocolate in the mornings before school ahead of the ball on Saturday. And while small donations add up, the Enloe Charity Ball attracts its share of big-swing donors who contribute thousands of dollars. All the donors are recognized with a big check at the main event, and this year, the students will open the giant Moneypalooza piggy bank at Marbles, a popular request from attendees in years past. 

“There is a lot of corporate outreach, reaching out to alumni, so we hit different target audiences and our support comes from the masses,” explained Fofaria. “We don’t have one specific place or a person [donating], but we make a lot of money off tickets and some fundraising events. It’s really cool to see how every year differs. It’s always cool to try different outreach and see what works out.”

The ball takes place this Saturday, December 13 at Marbles Kids Museum from 7 to 11 p.m. Click to make a donation or buy tickets to the ball.

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