Madison House hosted “The BIG Event” for its second year in a row April 9.
Nearly 500 student volunteers scattered across Charlottesville and University to over 40 different volunteer sites and showed appreciation for the community the University belongs to.
“The BIG Event” is a program conducted at many colleges throughout the country but has only been a part of the University community for two years.
Danial Hussain, first-year Engineering student and assistant director of operations for the BIG Event, said the purpose of the event is to give back to the Charlottesville community.
“The whole purpose is to give back to the community that gives us such as good college environment,” Hussain said. “In addition, the purpose was that anybody could sign up from the community of Charlotteville and get volunteers to help them with any tasks that they needed assistance with.”
The executive board who helped put this event together is comprised of Director Katelyn Ahern, who is hired by Madison House, and eight assistant directors of recruitment, development, operations and outreach.
Second-year College student Xing Zhang served as assistant director of recruitment, along with second-year College student Lindsey Vu.
“We were tasked with recruiting volunteers, spreading the word around Charlottesville and also getting more students to learn about the event,” Zhang said.
The board wanted to grow from its first year with regards to volunteers and groups that are represented by the University, Zhang said.
“We wanted to increase volunteer turnout and we wanted the register different groups instead of having individual volunteers,” Zhang said. “I think we did very well with that because it motivated more people to come out and volunteer with people that they know.”
Zhang said while there were approximately 200 to 300 volunteers last year, the number grew to around 500 this year.
The BIG Event also engaged local residents, Zhang said.
“This year we also tried to reach out to more homeowners in Charlottesville so that they know we care about the community,” Zhang said. “We got about 40 [to] 50 job sites and many of them are actually homeowners.”
Hussain said this was double the sites and volunteers the event had when it first came to the University.
The event is not just rewarding for those who received aid from volunteers, but also for the volunteers and those who organized the event, Hussain said.
“I definitely think that getting to hear some of the stories and how the volunteers get to help people is one of my favorite parts,” Hussain said. “It means the world to them to have volunteers to come out and help them with anything they need.”
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