NSU’s Big Event marks 11th year of volunteering

Each year, Northeastern State University students, faculty and staff join together to volunteer throughout the Tahlequah and Broken Arrow communities as part of The Big Event. On April 1, the NSU community will participate in this one-day event for the 11th year to say thank you to local businesses and community members.

NSU is one of many schools across the country that participate in this philanthropic event. In the past decade, the NSU community has helped thousands of residents.

We have around 78 job sites this year, Tori Gleaves, Tahlequah Big Event director and an NSU senior majoring in health and human performance, said. We are working at sites that need help with raking leaves, garden work, washing windows and doing cleaning for job site owners.

Everyone at NSU is encouraged to volunteer. Participants have included individual students, faculty, staff and groups such as clubs and Greek organizations.

So far, we have approximately 600 volunteers signed up, Gleaves said.

Volunteering can be a life changing experience while also creating a fun day for the participants.

I love volunteering at the petting zoo. It's one of my favorite job sites, Brooke Bergman, NSU junior majoring in cellular and molecular biology, said. It's just such a fun atmosphere with all of the animals and the owner John Jinks is such a nice guy. This is the second year we have worked a job site with them and they are always a pleasure to work with.

The Big Event is possible because of generous donations from the community that go toward needed event items such as rakes, shovels, paper towels, work gloves and more. Everyone is welcome to make a donation.

We are always taking donations; some of our job site owners are even donating tools on the day of the event for their volunteers to use, Gleaves said.