As a freshman, I had no idea what to expect when I was told about JMU’s Big Event. Despite this, I volunteered to be the Honors College team captain. For those of you who don’t know what it is…the Big Event is a community-wide day of service where different organizations and groups of JMU students are partnered up with a community organization or project. We convened at the quad at an early 8 am and the plan was to drive to the organization around 9:30 and come back when we’re finished. After participating in this day of service, I highly encourage everyone to volunteer next year.
There are a few reasons why the Big Event is so special, here are just a few reasons:
It Gives you a Chance to Give Back
Harrisonburg is very much centered around JMU, and the community has a love-hate relationship with that. We all know JMU has the tendency to have a party scene and the traffic that our large student body creates can be a bit of a hassle.
If you don’t identify with the other reasons, you can’t ignore that this is a great opportunity to repair the relationship between students and the community. Not to say we’re all terrible, but college students do tend to get a bad rap. Volunteering could be an opportunity to change that perception and do some real good for charitable and important organizations in the community.
The organization we worked with, Valley Mission Inc., serves homeless individuals in and around Staunton and we cleaned the kids’ rooms and toys. While it only took about 2 hours of our time, they were incredibly grateful and it was an extremely heartwarming experience. It felt good to give back to the community that keeps giving to us.
Meet Community Members
This is also a great opportunity to meet individuals in the community who have a passion for making Harrisonburg a better place. Everyone is super friendly and so grateful for your service that it’s easy to really identify with all of the people you meet. It’s cool to meet people that you wouldn’t normally meet inside the JMU bubble. There are really amazing people out there.
Establish Relationships
Thinking about the future, it’s really awesome to meet community members and establish strong relationships. By establishing these relationships, you can bring these ideas and organizations in need back to your clubs and organizations on campus.
Most clubs are looking for community partners to work with to fulfill service hours and who knows… Maybe the organization you randomly get paired with for the Big Event is one to hold onto and offer to club members. This is as much exposure as it gets for some of these organizations. There are a lot of small organizations that need regular help from willing students.
After volunteering I felt like I really made a difference, and you can too!