the BIG event

Yesterday was The BIG Event in College Station. Over 15,000 students signed up to be a part of "the largest, one-day, student run service project in the nation where students of Texas A&M come together to say "Thank You" to the residents of Bryan/College Station." 

The Geology & Geophysics Society put together a group that split to two locations. There was some major confusion in the masses during registration, but [most of] our group found each other eventually and headed to a families house in Bryan and gave their metal fence a fresh coat of black paint. The family was so nice and really needed some help around their ranch--both parents had been in the hospital in Houston recently. We actually had a lot of fun hanging out and the weather isn't scorching hot yet which was an added bonus. 

The fences were pretty rusty and old. They looked SO MUCH BETTER with a coat of black paint.

We had an eclectic group of students--grad and undergrad who usually don't hang out all together, but we had so much fun laughing and singing eye of the tiger, la bomba, and teach me how to dougie. 

We used oil based paint which is pretty serious stuff. We called it "black tar paint" because it was so thick and oily. These trays were very convenient for carrying from place to place, but as we would bend over to get the lower bars, occasionally the black tar paint would spill all over the place. We successfully coated the fence, our shoes, clothes, hands [we had gloves], arms, faces for some, the concrete sidewalks [oops] and grass. Exibit A:

Exibit B: Poor Alyssa had almost no control over her paint bucket.

And did I mention that this ranch had HORSES and EMUS?? We waited until we finished the first section of the fence by the road to take an "emu break" so we were extra motivated in the morning. I don't spend much time around emus, and they are a little creepy. We decided they were straight from Jurassic Park, which makes sense because birds are the only living descendants of dinosaurs! They were pretty curious about us as well.

It seemed as though they could get aggressive at any moment, but they never made any moves even when the guys decided to get in their pin.

The sound they make is very odd as well. It sounds a lot like drum or deep popping sound. I tried to find a video, but it's really difficult to hear/capture. It's the kind of noise you would expect a dinosaur to make. 

The horses were cute too, and at times didn't seem too keen on sharing a pin with several ornery emus.

We had a great day and left feeling like we had really spruced up this families house. With all they're going through, they needed a little pick-me-up.

The Big Event is the largest, one-day, student-run service project in the nation where students of Texas A&M University come together to say "Thank You" to the residents of Bryan and College Station. For the past 28 years Aggie students have participated in this annual event to show their appreciation to the surrounding community by completing service projects such as yard work, window washing, and painting for community members. Although The Big Event has become the largest one-day, student-run service project in the nation, our message and our mission remains the same – to simply say “Thank You.”