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On April 10, 2010, an idea that Jen Walts heard of at a Student Government Association (SGA) conference became a reality almost a year later at Quinnipiac University. Over 700 students gathered for a daylong community service initiative to thank the Hamden/New Haven area for serving as their home. It was called The Big Event.
According to The Big Event expansion packet, the event originated 26 years ago at Texas A&M by the SGA Vice President. The packet dictates that, “The goal of The BIG Event is to create a single day where students at campuses across the nation can come together for one big day, one big thanks, one Big Event. Though we may not be working side by side, the spirit of service will be apparent from coast to coast.” The Big Event now takes place on over 71 college campuses.
This year at Quinnipiac, SGA teamed up with the Community Action Project (CAP). SGA Vice-President of Public Relations, Jen Walts, and Co-President of CAP, Hillary Federico became the co-chairs of a committee of eight individuals. With the help of their respective organizations, they were able to put on The Big Event.
“We started from scratch,” said Big Event Co-Chair Hillary Federico. “We mostly handled all the logistical things by ourselves, which is a lot, especially the first year.”
Below is a video of featuring more from members of The Big Event committee and pictures from the various service sites students attended.
This year, Walts and her team were able to receive donations from various campus departments, including Athletics, to purchase supplies for each site and t-shirts for each participant. The small committee was responsible for calling all the sites and recruiting volunteers in addition to organizing the teams and ensuring everything played out the day of.
Quinnipiac students volunteered at 53 sites over the course of the day. This sites were located in Hamden and surrounding areas like Wallingford and New Haven. Federico comments that students were involved in “everything from painting day care centers, to building fences, to raking. A couple students were involved in a car wash. Basically you think of it, you name it, they did it. “
Teams consisted of Greek organizations, SPB, clubs around campus, or just students who wanted to get involved.
Below are just some of the sites that students visited and what their duties were.
Publicity Chair Ashley-rose Sherman also works at the Alumni House where one of her responsibilities is to contact parents and gauge their child’s experience. “If I ask [the parents] what event or how their kid was involved on campus, they always bring up the big event and say how much fun that their son or daughter had.”
Sisters of Phi Sigma Sigma were assigned to assist at St. Martin de Porres Academy in New Haven, where they did outdoor manuel labor to make the school better for it’s students.
Even though this year’s event just ended, the committee is already starting to work on next spring’s second annual Big Event.
The new committee will be co-chaired by Matt Hudak, SGA VP of Public Relations and Melissa Trinks, the co-president of CAP. Hudak is anxious to get started. “Its quite the event to take on, but I do love what the event is all about which is motivation enough for our big event team to pull through and do a really great job in 2011,” he said.
While Federico stressed working on the organizational structure of the committee, Hudak has other plans to improve The Big Event. “Outreach to sponsors and many more volunteers are the two things on the top of my list for improvements,” Hudak said.
“Our goal was to make this a tradition, so hopefully it will continue,” said Federico
Below are some documents that correlate to the article. The first document is a copy of the letter of interest sent to over 100 organizations and non-profits in the area to provide more information to potential sites and inform them the purpose and plan for the day.
The second document is a list of all the types of service organizations that made up The Big Event. There are six categories: Medicial/Research, Nature, Youth, Community Outreach, Elderly and Educational. The sites during the Big Event range from large organizations like Boys and Girls Club of New Haven to Maple Woods at Hamden, a senior living community. Teams rated their top three and were assigned to a site based on their interests.
None Too Small 