The Nation’s Largest Student-Run Day of Service Just Got Bigger

How many shovels, rakes, wheelbarrows and sets of gardening gloves does it take for thousands of students at Texas A&M to complete a single day of community service at job sites across Bryan and College Station?

That’s one challenge the student leaders who run Texas A&M’s The Big Event are trying to solve as they ramp up for their most impactful year yet. Behind the scenes, the student team is mobilizing a record number of Aggies to meet the demand for the highest jobsite numbers in Big Event history.

Scaling to Serve

More than 40 years after Joe Nussbaum ‘84 asked a simple but powerful question — “students occupy everything, how can we say ‘thanks’?” — the answer has grown into one of Texas A&M’s most heartfelt traditions. What began as a founder’s call to action has evolved into The Big Event: a recognized student organization and one of the most tangible expressions of the Aggie Core Value of selfless service.

This year, student organizers are setting their sights higher than ever, hoping to gather as many as 25,000 Aggies to serve nearly 3,000 homes, businesses and parks in the most ambitious showing of gratitude yet. In typical Aggie fashion, Nussbaum’s original spirit hasn’t just endured, but has reached new heights to transform a simple question into a growing legacy.

With the vision to serve as much of the community as possible, the strategy was to increase awareness by meeting residents and potential volunteers where they are. Expanding marketing efforts to reach residents right in their homes, The Big Event sent nearly 50,000 emails, partnered with local news outlets, placed ads in newspapers and utility bills, sent flyers through Home Owners Associations and Parent/Teacher Organizations and HOA groups, and more.

“The best feeling is when we have a resident call and sign up for a jobsite and say ‘I’ve heard about this,’” shared Ryann Berry ‘26, senior marketing major and The Big Event recruitment executive. “We want to gain residents’ trust and it’s great when the word gets out there that students just want to help.”

When it comes to reaching fellow Aggies, The Big Event team spreads the word by tabling across campus and partnering with other registered student organizations, fraternities, sororities and residence halls. Encouraging students to sign up in groups with their friends or sign up as an individual to meet new people, the team promises that volunteers will walk away from the day with so much more than they expected. The end goal is not about numbers, it is about connection.

“Often, our volunteers don’t remember the work they did at their job site, but rather the meaningful conversations and relationships they formed with other Aggies and the residents they served,” shared Reed McReynolds ‘27, junior management major and Big Event Executive Director.

Love for Our People, Love for the Community

One of the most endearing reasons residents and students alike keep signing up for The Big Event year after year is the opportunity it provides to build meaningful connections in a unique way. It’s not every day that college students and residents, who are from all walks of life, come together and spend a Saturday doing something that matters, not for a grade, not for a paycheck, but for the person living right next to them.

“When residents ask us why we do it, we tell them we love it and we love to see the impact it has on our volunteers and our residents,” said Berry.

It seems simple enough, but the connection found through service is often a powerful driver of the sense of belonging that comes from being part of something bigger than yourself. That’s what Berry found when she got involved in her freshman year. Looking for an organization to continue the volunteer work she did with her family while in high school, she quickly fell in love with The Big Event’s mission and the people she met.

Starting as a staff assistant, a boots-on-the-ground role, executing operations for the student organization, Berry moved up through the ranks to work on committees during her sophomore and junior years. Now, as a senior in her final year of service, she is a recruitment lead on the executive team and says The Big Event has become like a home for her and has defined her time at Texas A&M.

Looking back over the past four years, Berry has seen the organization grow from 300 to 500 members, and along the way, she’s personally learned what it’s like to serve in the fullest capacity from the leaders who invested in her first. At the center of it all has been a culture of caring that permeates from within the student organization to the residents served.

“Our goals as executives for this year and the future are to continue to serve as many people as possible and that means loving our own people well, too,” said Berry. “By pouring into them and paying it forward, we can help them develop during their time at The Big Event. Being able to work alongside Aggies from all different majors and backgrounds and to learn about leadership from the people before me has personally allowed me to grow and shown me just how purposeful our mission is.”

Good for Aggieland, Good for the Nation and Beyond

Year-round, the work never really stops. Student leaders recruit volunteers, build community partnerships, manage budgets and run day-to-day operations with the discipline of a non-profit, because in many ways, that’s exactly what they are. Formalizing non-profit status is the next big dream on the horizon, which would enable The Big Event to grow its impact long after any single class of Aggies.

And that impact is spreading. What started as one Aggie’s question in 1982 has become a national model, replicated at more than 130 universities and communities across the country. Students in other countries are now borrowing the blueprint because it works, and the need is everywhere.

Back in College Station, the mission stays the same: make it easier for every Aggie to say “yes” to service and to connect with more residents every year. This means fewer barriers, easier access and deeper roots in the community that has supported the students of Texas A&M for generations.

On March 21, a year’s worth of that work comes to life, as thousands of Aggies will fan out across Bryan and College Station to show up the way Aggies always have because selfless service is its own reward.