The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, March 30, 2015, Image 4
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 Alabama Story at Tx.ag/batt25