Southeastern Louisiana University hosts ninth annual Big Event
Almost one thousand students, faculty, staff and alumni of Southeastern Louisiana University participated in several community service projects to improve the local area in the city of Hammond on March 30.
This year’s Big Event once again gave students and volunteers opportunities to help the organizations and communities that sponsor SLU. Volunteers distributed their efforts of assisting others at locations such as the Greater Hammond Chamber of Commerce, Louisiana Children’s Discovery Center, TARC of Hammond and many more.
Students that volunteered represented various student organizations, fraternities and sororities.
Jobs consisted of landscaping, sorting materials, conducting inventory for non-profit organizations and clean-up efforts in the downtown Hammond area.
Also in attendance at Big Event, Southeastern President John L. Crain admired the dedication his students performed for all of the surrounding communities.
“Their efforts send a tremendous message that Southeastern cares and seeks to make the neighboring communities a better place for all to live,” Crain said. “If it weren’t for the students’ chivalrous contributions, this event would not be nearly as successful as it is every year.”
At one site, volunteers from Kappa Sigma fraternity delivered sand for landscaping and painted the interior of the Ministries of Hope. The volunteers from the fraternity were led by community service chairman, Tahj Charles.
“Today was a great day of giving back to our community that means the most to us,” Charles stated. “When us brothers come together and perform activities like this, it shows other people how much of a positive impact our fraternity has on others.”
This annual occasion never lost the importance that it meant for the students of SLU. Director of Office of Student Engagement and Primary Advisor of SGA, Zachary Rogers, was one of many personnel that helped organize Big Event.
“It truly shows that students give back to the community. It also shows how important it is that they give back to our campus and where a majority of them have lived their whole lives,” Rogers said.
Though this year’s Big Event marked the ninth straight year it was sponsored by SGA, the itinerary of the gathering remained similar to the previous years.
“For the majority of it, it was mostly the same. Students from Southeastern Laboratory (LAB) school were present and volunteered,” Rogers stated. “The positive aspect about ‘Big Event’ is that it creates sustainability as every year it is maintained at a certain, consistent level to in order to soon become more successful.”
Though ‘Big Event’ mostly highlights nearby areas affiliated with SLU, it extended its assistance to outer cities of Hammond.
“As volunteers signed up through their organizations, there were also teams of twenty people that were assigned tasks in the Ponchatoula, Amite and areas surrounding the Hammond Square,” Rogers said. “They taught our head personnel how great it is to give back and make their college experience much greater.”
The slogan for the annual event was “One day, one cause, one school.”
