Tuesday, April 14th, 2015 | TechNews

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IIT’s Big Event to pair students with service opportunities

Kori Bowns
EDITOR-IN—CHIEF

The Big Event at HT is an annual tra—
dition where students of all backgrounds gath—
er to donate their time through community
service to local venues in the city of Chicago.
The Big Event is the single largest service event
offered to students at the university.

This year will be the seventh year
that lIT will be participating in the Big Event,
but it is an event that has been held at other
universities for over 30 years. This year, IiT's
Big Event will take place on Saturday, April 18
from 9 a.m. until 1 p.m. Students will be able
to sign up to be paired up with a community
venue in neighborhoods around HT and across
Chicago.

Many of the volunteer opportuni-
ties ofiered for the Big Event allow students to
do some manual work cleaning up or improv-

ing a variety of locations. Some of the venues
and activities planned for this year’s Big Event
include: cleaning up Palmisano Park at 2700
South Halsted Street, painting and cleaning
Olivet Baptist Church on King Drive, facilitat—
ing Earth Day activities for Girl Scouts, and
cleaning up IlT’s very own UFarm.

Lynne Meyer, IIT’s Director of Spiri—
tual Life, Diversity, and Service, has been or-
ganizing the event for five years and says it’s
her favorite service event of the year. “It brings
people of all backgrounds, non—religious and
religious alike, together around the powerful
idea that we can help to make the world a bet—
ter place. It’s a time when we demonstrate, as a
community, that we care about our neighbor—
hood, our city, and our planet,” she said. Meyer
also says the event improves her outlook on
the world, “At the end of the day, after seeing
hundreds of my students devote their time and

energy to helping others, I am utterly in love

with life. I am renewed and uplifted. Especially
on days like The Big Event, the wonderfully di-
verse and caring community here at IIT gives
me hope for the future ofthis world.”

Meyer says that students choose to
donate their time through the Big Event for
a variety of reasons, but believes that “T stu-
dents have a core love of service.

llT’s Relay for Life is also partnered
with the Big Event. Relay will take place on
Saturday evening and gives students another
unique option to give back. In regard to this
partnership, Meyer said, "By bringing Relay
into the Big Event, we were able to give stu-
dents another choice for volunteering that was
completely unlike the other service options
traditionally part of Big Event. It’s on—campus,
and on Saturday night instead of Saturday
morning, which means that people who are
unable to serve at the morning events still have
a way to give back and be part of Big Event.

And that gets to the heart of something else
that I’ve tried to do over the years, which is
make the Big Event more inclusive. As much
as possible, I try to find sites that represent dif-
ferent types of service, so that anyone, regard-
less of area ofinterest or physical needs, has at
least one option that works for them.” Students
interested in joining IITs Relay for Life event
can sign up online at relayforlife.org/iitil.

A Following the conclusion of the
service work slated for Saturday morning, the
Office of Campus Life is sponsoring a picnic
for all of the participants when they return
to campus. The first 150 students to register
for the Big Event will also receive a free tee—
shirt. Students interested in signing up to
volunteer for the Big Event can visit tinyurl.
com/BigEventSignUplS by April 17 and send
any questions to Meyer at service@iit.edu.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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