When I was in elementary school, I remember being told by my mom that the very child sitting next to me in class could have a home life much different from mine. As a little girl, that reality didn’t seem quite as significant as it strikes me now.

In my first class last semester, who’s to say I didn’t sit next to a student struggling to pay for tuition? Or for housing? Or for food?

Who’s to say on my walk to J&B, I don’t often stroll past a sad-eyed mother knocking around in her home, trying to figure out how to feed her children.

Who’s to say my apprehension to buy a bottle of $15 vitamins is anywhere near the struggle of scraping together enough for a discounted loaf of stale bread?

So easily, we make the joke of being “broke college students.” However, I’m not sure we understand the gravity of being without a drop of money. How many of us take our paychecks straight to the bank and pray that will cover our tuition? And even then, that seems far from the poverty line’s threshold.

Interestingly, Lubbock has a pretty darn significant impoverished population. If you drive a little ways west, you’ll find it. If you stay out too late at night, you’ll see it. If you take a stroll down University Avenue, you can talk to it.

According to City-Data, in 2013, about 25 percent of Lubbock’s population fell below the poverty line. This placed poverty rate in Lubbock above the poverty rate in Texas as a whole.

Nearly 9 percent of Lubbock’s population falls in the bottom half of the poverty range, once again leaving Lubbock worse off than all of Texas.

So, why aren’t we doing more? There is not some heartwarming abundance of clothing drives and soup kitchens.

The thrift stores in Lubbock are frequented by giggly party-goers — ready to recreate the 1990s — or college students who are stylish enough to take a grandma’s sweater and pair it with ripped-up jeans.

That’s no problem. In fact, it’s pretty cool that we’re stretching our dollars farther. More power to the crafty Millennial and all that jazz. Right? However, I’ve looked around Savers on occasion — yes, here I am calling the kettle “black” — and seen families scrounging together whatever wardrobe some old T-shirts and a couple of ill-fitting jeans can produce.

I’ve waited for a fitting room — cheerily chatting with my bargain-hunting accomplices about the retro feel of the flannel draped over my forearm — right behind a weary father helping his son pick out a pair of school jeans. I’ve helped a friend find an outfit for a camp skit at a Goodwill that probably didn’t need its supply being diminished by two well-supported students.

I feel strange pointing this out because I really love thrift shopping. I do. In all honesty, I might go this weekend to find a 1980s-esque sweater.

However, my point is not so much that I think we’re terrible for ridding resale shops of that which they sell, but more that I want to encourage us all to pause and remember why such stores exist. They exist to serve and support those in need of our service and support.

Right now, deeply impoverished men, women and children are tightly woven into our community. Therefore, we mustn’t keep separating our insulated university experience from the difficult day-to-day lives of those around us.

The bottom line is there is such extensive poverty in Lubbock. We can’t let this be ignored.

We mustn’t let our time at Texas Tech be spent sucking up Lubbock’s resources, only to abandon the city without much more than a sappy farewell Facebook post. We owe more to this city.

Passion Conference — a Christian conference based out of Passion City Church in Atlanta — does an incredible job of providing an example of how to serve the city that serves the conference’s attendees.

Every year, Passion orchestrates the collection of countless — actually, I suppose they do count it all — towels, blankets or clothing to send back to whatever city involuntarily hosted them.

Through this, Passion helps return some focus to that city’s population. They’re recognizing it’s very easy to think of all the ways we need Lubbock to provide for us: cool shops, hip events, cozy little houses, affordable apartments, diverse food options, extensive medical facilities, well-maintained roads and freeways.

Yet, we are not thinking of what Lubbock needs from us.

Lubbock needs our too-tight jeans — darn you, freshman 15 — and old sweaters. Instead of prying 30 bucks from Plato’s Closet or $50 for a pair of never-worn sneakers from a girl on Facebook, we could pour those resources back into Lubbock.

Instead of driving across town for a couple of over-priced chicken tenders, we could spend that half hour helping at Lubbock’s soup kitchen. Instead of getting frustrated at Varsity because the line’s so long, we could bring a book we just finished reading to give to the homeless guy resting near Broadway Street.

The reality of poverty is that it is not just a state of financial crisis. Poverty can be an absence of emotional support or a lack of personal security or a chronic self-esteem deficiency.

Poverty is not something we need to just throw money at or place a pair of fresh socks on. Poverty should be looked at through a much broader lens. Poverty can be absolved through compassion and care for those around us, but the first step in that mission is stepping outside of our social nucleus to acknowledge the poverty surrounding us.

There are so many ways to serve Lubbock and so many ways in which Lubbock needs our service. So, this semester, remember the poverty that aches and spreads around us.

Don’t let there be such an abundance of need when we have a way to alleviate it. Serve our struggling neighbor, for their struggle is close-by.

Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Where one man is left in his need, we risk establishing the precedent of ignoring injustice. This is the reality of perpetuating the poverty we ignore.