The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, March 30, 2015, Image 4

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    BIG EVENT
The Battalion I 3.30.15
4
Lenae Allen —THE BATTALION
(Top) International studies freshman Katy Wilkes helps at a bomber baseball booth. (Bottom) PETE sophomore Jack
Christman works at the Donut Dangle booth. (Right) Communication junior Emily Balazik and allied health junior Katie
Graham work at an inflatable competition.
VIEWS
Big Event staff assistants Mark Dore,
Brittany Phelps and Emre Yurttas pose
for a photo Saturday at The Big Event.
No truer
showing of
service than
Big Event
Mark Dore
Service project funds field trips, grants
The Big Event sends 300 students
to elementary school carnivals
By Evan Flores
While thousands of students gathered
to go out into the Bryan-College Sta
tion community and provide services such
as manual labor, a number of students served
through The Big Event in a different way
this past Saturday.
Almost 300 students served at B-CS el
ementary schools this year through The Big
Event, which hosts carnivals for the students
and surrounding communities. These carni
vals raise money that goes back towards the
schools for funding field trips, teacher grants
and other future projects.
This year’s festivals were a success, said
Robert Killion, Big Event Outreach Direc
tor, with a surplus of students attending.
“This festival has been an incredible op
portunity for the residents of the area to work
with the schools, the students and the college
kids that have been able to volunteer,” Kil
lion said. “It really does form relationships
between families and students who volunteer
— one we hope to continue making.”
This year’s carnivals saw around 800 resi
dents volunteering alongside The Big Event
participants at different booths. Killion said
the numbers for how much money was
raised this year are not final yet.
“The amount raised isn’t exact yet, but as
this is their only fundraiser for the year, the
schools get a lot of money from this event,”
Killion said.
Although this year’s events are over, Kil
lion said The Big Event looks forward to
hosting the carnivals again next year.
“As far as I know, we will continue work
ing these festivals,” Killion said. “The bonds
made between the volunteers at the festivals
make it worth it, and we would like to see it
continue as long as possible.”
Nearly 22,000 Aggies participated in this year's Big
Event Saturday. (Below) Yell Leader Zachry Lawrence
leads The Big Event crowd at the opening ceremony.
Vanessa Pena — THE BATTALION
BIG EVENT CONTINUED
The student-nominated speaker, Scott Sha
fer, Class of 1980 and head of the Department
of Computer Science, said The Big Event is an
example that everyone working together can
create something bigger than themselves.
“Once you get your eyes open and ar
rive at your site, pull weeds, paint a bench,
clean a floor, it may not seem big but it is,
and you are,” Shafer said. “The Big Event is
big because you are going far beyond pulling
weeds, painting benches, and cleaning floors,
you are living a core value of this university,
a core value of being an Aggie. You’re en
gaging in selfless service.”
At the ceremony, Student Body President
Kyle Kelly said The Big Event is an incred
ible event and doesn’t show any signs of
stopping.
“[I’m] still amazed year after year that we
have 21,000 Aggies that show up this early
in the morning on a Saturday to serve — it
doesn’t get old; it doesn’t get routine,” Kelly
said. “Having been a part of The Big Event
for five years now, it hits me the same way.
They couldn’t do this at other schools.”
As students prepared to disperse to their
job sites, the 2015-2016 Yell Leaders led
their first yells together, including one call
ing for Aggies to “beat the hell out of yard
work.”
Killion said planning for next year will be
gin right away.
“Everything that we do has been meticu
lously done for the future and for the growth
ofthe Big Event,” Killion said. “We will start
choosing our new exec team and director
within the next month and they will be on
the ball. But really every year is preparing for
the current year as well as for the future.”
Cantrell Bryan, accounting senior, said
The Big Event was a rewarding experience.
“It went pretty well — we went out to a
house in Bryan,” Bryan said. “We chipped
paint for six hours. It was a lot a fun; they
were very hospitable — made us sandwiches
and stuff.”
Killion said he felt The Big Event was im
mensely successful.
“Overall, it was a huge success,” Killion
said. “I think Research Park proved to be an
incredible location for us, and at the end of
the day we have the chance to serve and say,
‘Thank you’ to the residents of the commu
nity and that’s what truly matters.”
@Mark_Dore
TV /T y Event lasted longer than most
I % /1 — something in the vicinity of 12
JLV JL hours — but I did no more glamor
ous work than the almost 22,000 students
pulling weeds and painting fences.
At some point I threw my back out haul
ing a ladder. I got a little too much sun, and
I swallowed some dirt tossing a bag of leaves
into a dumpster. It turns out the best memo
ries require a few rounds of Advil afterward.
Saturday afternoon, as a staff assistant for
The Big Event, a small piece of a hyper-
coordinated machine aimed at nothing more
than a humble afternoon’s work, I brushed
against the unique ethic of this university in a
way I never imagined possible.
The Battalion exposes me to new slices of
campus every day, with each story driv
ing home the breadth of experience on
this campus. But as I prepare to graduate, I
wanted to get my hands dirty. The news
room will always be my campus home, but
The Big Event provided the perfect outlet to
experience the community in a grittier, more
sunburned way.
Service is hard to measure, except in rare
moments like Saturday, when 24,000 Aggies
sat in traffic for hours to saw ’em off at 9 a.m.
ahead of an afternoon of work. That’s not a
normal thing to do. As we set up at 7 a.m.,
several hundred students were already there,
hours early. Again: not normal. Aggies help
their own every day, but driving past yard af
ter yard filled with hundreds of bagged leaves
explained to me the A&M core values in a
way a slogan never could.
But if The Big Event is an iceberg, Satur
day’s spectacle is just its tip, the manifestation
of general community goodwill and the work
on the part of the student team that makes
it possible. As a staff assistant, I had the best
view in the house. Each of us checked a
handful of the job sites beforehand to gauge
the tools and volunteers needed for the work.
(Which means if you didn’t have enough
gloves or shovels, it might have been my
fault. Sorry.)
The process revealed some of the many
ways people can stick to the Aggie magnet.
One woman whose house we checked travels
200 days per year, leading Aggies on trips
around the world. There was an Aggie vet
erinarian, a couple retired professors and one
woman who became so close with an Aggie
family during her stint at A&M that she still
lives with them, decades later.
One couple recently bought a house in
the area after their daughter came home
brainwashed in the best way. They offered to
open their home for my Big Event partner’s
and my wedding (we’re engaged, so it’s not
weird) and they had the chairs and waterfront
view to prove it. They were entirely serious.
This is our community.
But when it comes to putting into words
The Big Event’s impact, I’ll turn it over to
one of the event’s superstars. Emre Yurttas
embodies The Big Event’s purpose better
than anyone I’ve known and, along with my
fiancee, he was my partner this year. A politi
cal science senior, he grew up in College
Station and has seen the service project take
root.
“It’s important because the Bryan-College
Station community does so much for us as stu
dents and they supported us so much over the
years,” he said. “It’s a nice way to show we’re
not just students, we’re servant-hearted leaders
devoted to giving back for the greater good.”
Mark Dore is an English senior and Editor-in-
Chief of The Battalion.
Softball wins series finale at home against
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