More than 1,100 students signed up to volunteer their time across more than 100 different sites throughout the Lafayette-Oxford-University community as part of the 16th annual Ole Miss Big Event, held on Saturday, March 28.
As the largest community service initiative at the university, the event held significance in the wake of Winter Storm Fern, which saw the Oxford community come together in myriad ways.
Makayla Smith, a senior dietetics and nutrition major from Hattiesburg, Miss., served as co-executive director of the Big Event this year with senior public policy leadership major Celie Rayburn.
Smith believes the lived experience of students during Fern contributed to a rise in student volunteer applications, with roughly 300 more applicants than last year.
“I think (Winter Storm Fern is) really something that impacted a lot of people in Oxford,” Smith said. “We were talking about how we felt the inconveniences of the storm … not being able to do everything in typical life, but a lot of people (had) damaged homes and (were) out of power for weeks. So being able to give back in this way, I think a lot of people experienced some of the inconveniences and then thought about what it could have been and therefore felt called to come even more.”
Smith thinks the event’s outreach programs contributed to the rise in turnout, including a weeklong tabling initiative, in which volunteers distributed chicken biscuits, hats, loaded teas, friendship bracelets and other goods the week before the Big Event to raise awareness.
“We put a lot of effort into our volunteer recruitment and helping you sign up with your friends,” Smith said. “It’s a lot more fun when you know somebody you’re going with, so I think that made a lot of people a lot more comfortable.”
The Big Event was first introduced to the University of Mississippi in 2011 and has happened every year since, except for 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The initiative was created at Texas A&M University in 1982 and has spread to campuses across the U.S.
For Smith, the major theme of the event is community members coming together for a common purpose.
“The first word that comes to mind is community — giving back to the Oxford community,” Smith said. “I got involved as a project leader my freshman year. … I got to meet a lot of people that were assigned to my site and made lots of friendships, and it made me want to stay involved with the Big Event. … The purpose of the Big Event is to bring students together to go out and serve.”
This year’s Big Event leadership team also worked with the City of Oxford to help reach more sites and organizations at which students can volunteer.
“This year, one of our big emphases that we really strove to kind of make happen is (developing a relationship with) Stronger Together, an organization with the city of Oxford that governs all the nonprofits,” Smith said. “We were like, ‘How can we get in contact with them to help people, as well as the organizations that serve those people?’ … They were a super big part of our success.”
Equally paramount to the Big Event’s success was positioning the organization as a welcoming environment for students interested in community service.
“Community service in general is something that I found a passion for in high school, and I was really looking to find where I could continue that in college,” Smith said. “I think this organization is such a great opportunity for that. It can be as high commitment or low commitment as you want it to be. It can be four hours on your Saturday or it can be your (home organization) here.”
Dylan Quinn, a senior public policy leadership major from Fulton, Miss., served as a project leader for the Big Event.
Quinn got involved with the event by chance.
“I was just floating around on social media, and then I saw an ad for Big Event project leader, and I was like, ‘Okay, this seems great,’” Quinn said. “I want to give back to the Oxford-Lafayette community, and this was the best way to do it.”
For Quinn, the Big Event was an opportunity to even the score with the Oxford community.
“This community gives so much to us, as students,” Quinn said. “We need to give back to the community in return.”
