The Big Event is one big day of community service in which the Southeastern Campus gives back to the surrounding areas of Hammond and Ponchatoula. The Big Event is different from other service projects because it is not based on socioeconomic need. The Big Event is a way for the entire student body and campus to express gratitude to residents who support them during their college career. Our local residents attend sporting events, donate to our college, and put up with the traffic and everything else that comes along with living around college students. Whether it is painting houses, raking yards, or laying bricks, the type of job is not important. The Big Event is not about the type of job we do or the number of jobs completed or how many students participate. Rather, it is the interaction with the residents and the resulting unity in the community that makes The Big Event so BIG!
In 1982, members of the Student Government Association at Texas A&M University began The Big Event as a way to say “Thank You” to the surrounding community. In 2011, the first Big Event took place at Southeastern Louisiana University with 34 job sites and over 300 students giving their time to serve the community of Hammond, Louisiana. Now ten years, hundreds of job sites, and thousands of students later, the student organizers and participants are eager to serve the local communities like never before. As the project grows, the mission stays true: “Through service-oriented activities, The BigEvent promotes unity among campus and community as students come together for one BIG day to express their gratitude of the support from the surrounding community.”
The Big Event is a day of service where students come together to complete tasks in the community to show our gratitude for all the support that they give us.
The Big Event is held at various job sites throughout the parish and surrounding communities.
Each Big Event team meets on campus and is assigned to a different job site.
Participants will meet at Southeastern under the breezeway (commonly known as the “S”) at 8AM the day of the Big Event.
The Big Event starts at 8:00 am and ends after 12:00 pm. Historically, students will volunteer at a job site for 3-4 hours.
Breakfast and lunch will be provided for all Big Event participants and volunteers!
Each volunteer will receive a Big Event T-shirt that you are encouraged to wear during the day. Teams do not know what job site they are going to until the day of, so we recommend wearing comfortable shorts or pants and tennis shoes.
Be sure to wear clothes and that you do not mind getting dirty, as some locations involve painting, planting, or cleaning.
A job site is where every team completes their service projects and each team will be assigned a job site, such as a nonprofit, business, or local area.
Tasks will depend on what job site your team gets assigned to. Volunteer tasks consist of painting fences, bathing dogs, picking up sticks, raking, moving boxes, planting greenery, or organizing items.
