The Big Event 2018
TAMUT held its 2nd annual Big Event Saturday April 14th. The Big Event is a day of service where students, faculty, staff and friends of the university come together to complete community service projects throughout Texarkana. This year there were over 280 volunteers who clocked more than 1100 hours of community service at 24 locations on both sides of State Line Avenue.
Each year A&M Texarkana solicits project requests from area non-profit and community organizations. The Big Event always starts off with registration and breakfast at the TAMUT campus. From there the volunteers are split into teams and scattered across town to paint, pick up trash, plant flowers and trees, clean, build and serve the greater community at large by providing manpower that these organizations wouldn’t normally have.
Michael Stevenson, Coordinator of Student Life at A&M-Texarkana, was in charge of the event and was very pleased with the outcome. “We were so excited to host the second annual Big Event: Eagle Pride, City Wide,” Stevenson said. “It was one big day, one big thanks, and one big event to say thank you to the Texarkana community for its unwavering support of our university.”
A&M-Texarkana President Dr. Emily Cutrer and her husband Tom took part in the volunteer work as well. “Tom and I divided our volunteer time between many of the sites where our Eagle Family members were working on Saturday,” Cutrer commented. “It was so rewarding to see our A&M-Texarkana teams making a BIG difference thru The BIG Event! We are incredibly blessed by the support the Texarkana community has given our university since its inception, so we are very grateful to have the opportunity to express our appreciation by lending a helping hand to various service organizations throughout the area. As always, it was a great day to be an Eagle!”
This year saw a 25% increase in the number of volunteers, and the number of service locations doubled over last year’s event. Some of the locations included The Ace of Clubs House, Running WJ Ranch, Miller County Senior Center, Wagons for Veterans, Habitat for Humanity, The Sandflat Neighborhood Center and Texarkana Farmers Market.
Local Sponsors for The Big Event included Farmers Bank & Trust, KIND Snacks, Sonic, Wendy’s and Starbucks.
