Renaissance helps street grow

It started as the basement musings of three students at the University. We were impatient, not wanting to wait until we graduated to create positive change in our community. We were audacious, believing we could achieve  anything we dreamed if we put our minds together and worked hard. We were three precocious idealists, until our dream became reality in a major way: the Hillsborough Street Renaissance.

The festival was born out of a desire to recognize and diminish inequality. The non-profit organizations we sought to help, Engineers Without Borders, MorLove and Soles4Souls, understood that as much of the world becomes wealthier, many communities face burgeoning poverty.

Hillsborough Street itself, is an example of this phenomena of growing inequality. As NC State becomes a wealthier and more developed institution, many of the dilapidated buildings on Hillsborough Street house businesses which are struggling to remain financially solvent. The University teaches us values of equality, environmental stewardship and artistic creativity. We are encouraged to pursue economic development. Yet the wealth of knowledge we are acquiring is lost to the surrounding neighborhood as we build our ivory tower and forego establishing substantial dialogue with the local community.

The Hillsborough Street Renaissance was the first of what will hopefully be many events that work to reshape these educational and economic paradigms. Despite the cold and the rain, the festival raised approximately four thousand dollars and more than 800 pairs of shoes for our benefiting charities. Most importantly, the festival brought the community together in support of revitalizing this area and creating meaningful relationships between the University and its neighbors.

What started as a dream and progressed to a festival has now become a movement. Legacy Event Planners, the organization established to plan the Hillsborough Street Renaissance, is comprised of students and educators working together to create a new model of education and university involvement in the community. We believe that the time for a curriculum centered around rote memorization from textbooks has passed. This model leaves students bored and does not provide them with the skills necessary to become effective leaders.

In place of this model, we are advocating a curriculum based on community service and hands-on problem solving. Most of us came to this University because we wanted to create a better future for ourselves and for our children. Yet somewhere along the way, many students begin treating college as a mere stepping stone to a higher salary. Through the continued planning and execution of events in this area that bring the community together for fun and deserving causes, LEP will prove that students do not have to wait until they graduate to impact positive change in the world.

LEP is a group of creative mathematicians. We see a world plagued by inequality and we believe we have a model of how to fix the equation. This editorial is dedicated out to every student, educator and community member who has ever envisioned a better world. For more information on how to become involved please e-mail info@legacyeventplanners.org