Collegio Online

Issue date: 4/23/09 Section: Front Page

Kevin Coker, senior in history, and Andrea Gordon, junior in accounting and finance, participate in The Big Event by cleaning the backyard of a local resident's house on Tuesday, April 21. Last year, over 500 students both individually and part of campus organizations worked at over 100 job sites in the Pittsburg community.

PSU's Student Government Association sponsored the 7th annual Big Event on Saturday, April 18. The Big Event is a one-day event where students from various clubs and organizations across campus volunteer to help give residents of the community. The students began their work at 9 a.m. and worked until every one of the 112 houses had been visited and their respective tasks completed.
"It's a one-day service project and all the students can participate, organizations and individuals," Alyssa Hillman, coordinator for the Big Event, said. "We go to every job site and complete it, then come back."
Katie Engelland, another member of the committee, participated in the Big Event last year and described the type of work as raking leaves, cleaning gutters, picking up trash, washing windows and other types of yard work.
Even though the main focus of the event was the students volunteering in the community, there was a lot of work done by the Big Event committee in planning and organizing the event, as well as working to keep the activities on the day of the event running smoothly.
"We (the committee members) were organizing food, making sure everybody got supplies back and delivering trash bags to the sites," Hillman said.
Rebecca Wilson, junior in communication, was also in her second year as a volunteer for the Big Event and said that it was a good way to help the community that gives so much to students throughout the school year.
"It's nice that Pittsburg, Kansas lets PSU students come in here for so many months out of the year and then we just leave in the summer. I think it's nice that we give back and show the town that we appreciate them letting us be part of the community."
Although Hillman did say that this year's participation was down a bit from last year, both in the number of job sites and the number of student volunteers, she hopes to help expand it for next year's event.
"I'm the event coordinator for next year too," Hillman said. "I hope to change the times up, hopefully make it later in April, and maybe push back the starting time to noon, so hopefully the weather will be nicer."

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