Helping out in Durham

Do you ever wonder where your $120 student activities fee goes? This semester alone, I paid $248 so that we have an afternoon barbecue or a band play on the quad whenever Campus Council desires. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love free food just as much as everyone else, but I feel that our money could be spent in better ways. It almost seems wrong to support this unnecessary entertainment when we know we could use the money to provide food or educational programs to the families of Durham.

This Saturday I went to the Durham Impact Community Development Corporation as part of the “Into the City” adventure. As we boarded the bus we weren’t really focused on the work we were about to do. I figured we’d weed the garden for two hours and show Durham that Duke students could actually be helpful. Then we’d head back to school a little sweaty and would be greeted with ice cream and free T-shirts. I never would have imagined, however, that we were about to meet the most compassionate, caring people in Durham.

When we arrived, my group heard a short speech by an energetic couple, who were truly dedicated to helping their community. At first, I wasn’t too excited about sitting and listening to them speak. But as soon as the man began talking I quickly changed my mind and realized that I would spend the afternoon understanding the real meaning of service.

After a brief introduction, the man began talking about his community. He talked about the prostitutes with college degrees standing on the corners of east Durham. He described how neglected children were resorting to violence because they had nothing else to turn to. He hung his head as he told us how people even resorted to robbing their food shelter because they were that hungry. And finally, he stood tall and mentioned how he had taken in a 12-year-old boy who had been arrested for sexual assault because he thought this child deserved another chance at life.

This man had nine children, a church and an insatiable desire to help his community. He knew he would succeed at all costs because he truly cared and thought that everyone deserved some sort of societal love. This man ran a food pantry and was trying to start a free health clinic to provide his community with programs focusing on helping battered women, substance abusers and neglected children. He was trying to create an organization that would positively change the future of his community, but he didn’t have the funding. The cost of his dreams $25,000.

As I was sitting on the bench, it suddenly hit me that our University could easily fund, or at least donate money to, a project of this scale. I bet students wouldn’t mind if we had one less quad movie night or one less comedian perform. How amazing would it be to help this man and clean up our city?

We can live at Duke for as long as we want, hidden safely within our Gothic walls and protected by our special police force. It’s almost too easy. Although we are a separate part of Durham, we still have a place in this community and should try and do something more to help. Are you sick of feeling scared that your car might break down or run out of gas while driving around Durham on a Saturday night?.

We shouldn’t continue to fortify the boundary between the city and our school, pretending that Durham doesn’t have problems. That’s not going to do any good. Rather, we should try our best to get to the root of the problem and work with local organizations to help out our community.