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Students give back to the community during BIG Event

Amanda Pitrof

Students sit in wait for their job sites in the Student Recreation Center at last year’s BIG Event. This year’s event takes place on March 21, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Alexandria Saba, Community Editor

One of the BIGGEST events of the University of Toledo will take place on March 21.

“The BIG Event is the largest student community service event on campus,” said Ashley Citraro, a third-year majoring in human resources and information systems and the overall director of the BIG Event for 2015. “It’s a day where students are sent out into the surrounding areas of Toledo to give back to the community that supports the university.”

The event will be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and start at the Student Recreation Center and any student can be involved, whether that is individually or part of an organization, said Lauren Banks, a second-year majoring in recreational therapy and a director of operations for the BIG Event.

According to Citraro, the event hopes to send at least 2,500 students out into the community.

“Students participate in this annual event to show their appreciation to the surrounding community by completing service projects such as volunteering throughout the community and in those neighborhoods that are closest to us,” Banks said.

Banks said it depends on where each group will go because it is all determined by who needs help and what service needs to be done.

“On the day of the BIG Event [the students] are distributed out to different job sites around the area,” she said. “Some groups go to residential homes to do work, others to parks, some to non-profit organizations.”

Citraro said students should get involved because the event is supporting the surrounding areas in Toledo.

“The job sites we help out at are anywhere from downtown areas like Cherry Street Missions, to residential sites in Old Orchard,” Citraro said. “Students are even kept on campus for cleaning and helping with projects here.”

Banks said people should get involved because it is a great way to do service for our local community and it is a way to say “thank you” to Toledo and all that the community does for the university.

“The BIG Event is going to be new and exciting this year due to the fact that we have Red Bull coming in and hosting a paper airplane contest,” Banks said.

According to Alexander Wisniewski, it is 100 percent free to volunteer. There will also be free Red Bull at the event in support of the BIG Event. Wisniewski is the Student Brand Manager for Red Bull on the University of Toledo’s campus.

“Red Bull Paper Wings” is a paper airplane competition where competitors build their own paper airplanes to compete in three different categories: longest distance, longest airtime and aerobatics,Wisniewski said.

“This is a global competition with tens of thousands participants competing from 80 different countries from four separate continents,” Wisniewski said. “The University of Toledo is one of the qualifying locations in the United States where competitors will compete for the opportunity to represent Team USA at the global finals in Salzburg, Austria.”

According to Wisniewski, the top qualifiers for each category will travel over the summer to compete in the global finals at Hangar-7 in Austria.

“They will be joining the top qualifiers from the rest of the United States as well as qualifiers from across the world, in hopes of taking home the world championship,” Wisniewski said.

Wisniewski said this is the first time that Red Bull is teaming up with the BIG Event and they are hoping to make both events as big and successful as possible.

Students can sign up ahead of time online at http://www.redbullpaperwings.com or show up at the Rec Center at 10 a.m. the day of the event.

Wisniewski said “Students can join the conversation on Twitter by tweeting at @RedBullOHIO using the hashtag #PaperWingsUT.”

Citraro said they reached out to other venues such as Marco’s Pizza, Papa John’s Pizza and Oasis for coupons to hand out before the volunteers leave. These coupons can be used after the day of volunteering as a thank you to everyone who helped throughout the day.

Citraro said she has been involved in BIG Event since her freshman year.

“I went to Sunset Home in Old Orchard to hang out with the elderly and clean up the front yard of the nursing home,” she said. “I enjoyed the event so much that last year I decided to join the BIG Event team as Director of Recruitment. It was so settling to recruit volunteers who were just as excited about the event as I was. I am excited to see how this year’s event goes and continue to show my support in the coming years.”

Along with Citraro, there are over 700 participants already signed up.

For more information and to sign-up to volunteer, go to the BIG Event website, http://www.utoledo.edu/studentafairs/osi/bigevent/.

“Although the BIG Event has become the largest one-day, student-run service project in the nation, the message and our mission remains the same: to simply say “thank you,” Banks said.

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