A Tale of Two Trentons Anonymous

Trenton isn’t really one city—it’s two. The first Trenton runs between North Broad Street and West Hanover Street, and there’s a government building on every block: gleaming façades, Grecian columns, security checkpoints every few feet. The second starts on Calhoun Street, and it’s an entirely different world. The houses have fallen into disrepair, subject to years of failed government policy and disregard. While one Trenton is populated by the bureaucrats who make the rules, the second is home to those who fall through the cracks—the people whom the rules neglect to consider.

Drive into the second Trenton and you’ll eventually find yourself in front of 10 West State Street. It’s not a place you’d associate with life-changing work, but it’s home to the Young Scholars’ Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to offering supplemental education programs for underprivileged Trenton-area youth. Volunteering at YSI taught me a lot—the virtues of hard work, organization, and responsibility—but above all, it taught me that leadership isn’t a willingness to speak. It’s the ability to listen.

Every morning this past summer, I worked with students whose parents were left unemployed after factories in Trenton closed down, or whose...