Southeastern students and organizations came together to serve the community and make Hammond a more beautiful city to live in.
Over 600 Southeastern students registered to participate in the Big Event and were sent out to various locations in the community.
“We had sites at four parks, including Zemurray Park, the Chamber of Commerce, CASA, elderly or handicap houses, Special Olympics office, on campus litter pick up and the Athletics buildings,” says Taylor Petit, senior marketing major.
Some of the teams participate every semester for the Big Event.
“We do it every semester,” said Ryan Zellner, senior communications major and president of Kappa Sigma. “We have all the guys come and do it together…we all understand that this a great thing that Southeastern does to put on the Big Event and we do it every year because we like giving back to the community.”
Other students come back for the rewarding experience.
“This is my third year so I am kind of a veteran in this department… and this is the fourth year of the event,” said Rebecca Schnadelbach, senior kinesiology exercise science major and member of Alpha Sigma Tau. “But, I’ve done it for three years and it is rewarding.”
Other Southeastern students participated for the first time.
“This is my first year participating and I’m excited to do that,” said Krista Achor, junior special education major and member of Alpha Sigma Tau.
Students had much to look forward at the start of the event.
“One thing I look forward to…are how many people are out here and coming together as one,” said Zellner. “We are all different organizations and different parts of campus. It’s just really awesome to see how many people are out here.”
Participants of the Big Event had setback for the activities planned due to weather complications.
“There were some setbacks due to the weather,” said Katie Neil, junior biology major and group leader of team participant, National Society of Collegiate Scholars (NSCS). “We were able to make the most of our time and still participate by cleaning up trash around campus thanks to the resourcefulness of the Big Event coordinators and staff.”
Other teams were assigned projects that would have required painting to be done outside.
“We are kind of excited about it, but we are apprehensive because of the weather,” said Schnadelbach. “It may be kind of difficult to paint in the rain. But, I think there may be a few other things on the list duty that we can do.”
The students involved with the coordination of the Big Event were ready to handle the complications of the rain as well as letting all the groups participate.
“The rain set us back some because we had a lot of students that were assigned to all of the painting at the four parks,” said Petit.  “Instead, some stayed at the parks for litter pick up and raked leaves while other teams returned to campus and worked on cleaning up there.  Stephanie Travis, who is in charge of Campus Beautification for SGA, split campus into sections and assigned returning teams areas.”
Participants were able to make the best of every situation and give back to the community while feeling that the weather did not ruin the event.
“Even though there were some setbacks due to the weather, we were able to make the most of our time and still participate by cleaning up trash around campus thanks to the resourcefulness of the Big Event coordinators and staff,” said Neil.
New sites were a major factor for this year’s event.
“I’ve talked to a few people from different groups and they said how grateful the people at their sites were,” said Petit. “Every year we have some of the same sites participate, and this year we had a good bit of new ones.”