The
Big Event is the nation’s largest one-day student-run community service
project.
(College Station)—Service above and beyond expectations is one of the attributes that helps make Texas A&M University unique.
The latest National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) confirms that compared to their counterparts at other nationally prominent universities, Texas A&M students do more tutoring, take part in more co-curricular activities and do more community service while still putting in as many hours working to pay for their education and prepare for classes.
That pattern of service is nowhere more apparent than with the Big Event, the largest one-day student-run service project in the nation, which last month involved nearly 9,000 students working on about 1,000 projects in the community. The Big Event, massive by any standard, is sponsored and organized by the Texas A&M Student Government Association.
Nearly
9,000 Texas A&M students participated in the Big Event March 25.
The Big Event began as a little project organized by six Texas A&M students who got together to clean up a local cemetery in 1982 as a way of saying “thank you” to the Bryan-College Station community.
This year, the 1,000 projects ranged from painting houses and repairing roofs for needy residents to picking up trash on vacant lots.
While the Big Event is a well-planned and well-organized endeavor that annually shows Aggies at their community-service best, Aggies in 2005 also showed what they can do exceedingly well even on short notice.
Students stepped up big-time when hurricanes Katrina and Rita ravaged the Gulf Coast last fall. Both prompted major evacuations, and hundreds of those evacuees ended up at Reed Arena on the Texas A&M campus.
Hundreds of members of the Corps of Cadets and other student organizations, along with a host of individual volunteers, were there to lend helping hands. Led by Gen. John Van Alstyne, corps commandant, and joined by members his staff as well as other university staff and faculty, the Aggies mounted a massive effort to house, feed and otherwise assist hundreds of Katrina evacuees from New Orleans and other parts of Louisiana for more than a week.
In addition, Texas A&M Transportation Services sent buses to San Antonio to carry evacuees who arrived by military planes at Kelly Air Force Base to area shelters. That endeavor involved 10 buses with 23 student drivers, four managers and four University Police Department representatives.
The Aggies no sooner caught their collective breath and returned to a semblance of normalcy than along came Rita, bearing down on the Texas coast. Hundreds of evacuees, mostly from the Houston area, converged in Aggieland.
The Aggies again set up hundreds of beds, staffed chow lines and provided other needed services at Reed Arena. This time the effort also included the state-of-the-art facilities at the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biological Sciences’ Large Animal Hospital being converted into a facility for special-needs patients from Houston and Galveston, with assistance from the Texas A&M Health Science Center. Pearce Pavilion was transformed into an animal shelter for hundreds of relocated pets.
While those were obviously big and highly visible projects, Aggies volunteer thousands of hours in endeavors that don’t attract much attention. Many, if not most, of the more than 700 student organizations formally recognized by the university carry out service projects on a continuing basis.
Alpha Phi Omega has service as its primary purpose, and engages in frequent blood drives and “parents’ night out” programs, among other activities.
Aggie Athletes Involved (AAI) is now in its 15th year of community service. More than half of the university’s varsity athletes participated in at least one AAI event during the past year, making it one of the most highly involved student-athlete organizations in the nation. Recent AAI activities have included help with Special Olympics, “reading nights” at local elementary schools, “run for your life” programs, cemetery renovation and participation in the Big Event.
Members of the Memorial Student Center (MSC) Hospitality Committee, in addition to other activities, go into local schools to read to more than 2,100 kindergarteners during “100 Days of Reading.” By partnering with the local Barnes & Noble bookstore, those students also raised enough funds to give each one of the children a book.
The recurring volunteerism list goes on. Here are a few examples:
The Department of Student Life and Off-Campus Aggies join local neighborhood associations and the police departments of both Bryan and College Station in walk-and-talk events. They educate and inform residents by handing out bags containing information ranging from code enforcement issues, such as traffic, noise and trash, to helpful hints on ways to access city services.
Aggies in the Art of Living Club offers free classes on meditation and stress reduction to promote a healthier life.
The campus Recycling Center and student environmental groups such as Replant, whose members volunteer their time to plant hundreds of trees, hold Planet Earth celebrations.
The Aggie Relay for Life group raises money for cancer research and cancer patients.
Aggie Locks of Love collects hair for children who have lost their own hair because of cancer or other medical conditions.
Aggie Habitat for Humanity holds a “Shack-A-Thon” each spring to raise money and awareness for the homeless. The students build shacks on campus out of scraps of cardboard and wood and live in them for several days.
CARPOOL (Caring Aggies R Protecting Over Our Lives), a program that gives students free rides home from bars, was the first program of its kind when it was begun in 1999 and has become a model for similar programs.
Sometimes the unique Aggie spirit of serving and giving goes unnoticed, except for seemingly small gestures that Aggies take for granted but make big impressions upon campus visitors. They usually go something like this: “I must have looked lost because this student stopped and asked if I needed help and then walked with me all the way across campus to where I needed to be so I wouldn’t get lost again.”
In hundreds of ways large and small, Aggies step forward to underscore that unique Aggie spirit and can-do attitude.