No job’s too big, no job’s too small for “The Big Event,” JGISD’s community service project which will happen for its ninth year May 24.
JGISD principal Nathan Branum and Big Event advisor Christy Coulter took some time earlier this week to explain to The Texas Spur how the initiative works.
“On May 1, we’ll distribute forms from the school and from the local businesses, and people can sign up to get their projects done,” Coulter said.
Year in, year, the 170 students and 50 staff members— that’s every student and every staff member— have fanned out into the community to help with fix-up and clean up projects across Kent County.
“We’ve helped elderly people paint inside and outside their houses, moved furniture, cut down trees, mowed, cleaned up the park, roadsides, businesses and the golf course,” said Coulter, who has been a part of all nine Big Events.
When asked about the most unusual job request for the Big Event, she said, “We’ve killed rattlesnakes, and there was one year, when we cut down a tree and made a very unhappy raccoon.”
The Big Event, one of the area’s largest community improvement projects was the brainchild of the late Mike Wilson, a longtime and beloved science teacher at Jayton. “This was a tradition at Texas A&M where he went to school,” said Branum. Wilson brought the tradition to Kent County to help his Jayton neighbors and community beautify their hometown.
In the middle of the day “Big Event” workers all come together for a lunch that has been prepared by cafeteria staff and is served by the JGISD school board.
Coulter said students, teachers and staff are divided up by location and jobs. For example, pre-K to 2nd grade students clean up around the schools, but older students and adults take on the larger projects out in neighborhoods.
Property and business owners who need help have until May 12 to turn in their job requests. The Big Event request form will also be on the school’s Facebook page, and the completed forms need to be delivered in person to the school.
If you have a Big Event project that requires materials, such as painting, you’ll need to provide paint, brushes, tarps, tape and materials, and the school will provide the labor.
Otherwise, just general clean-up, such as picking up litter, mowing, raking, trimming limbs can be handled by the school.
Coulter said that the school averages 20 to 25 community clean-up projects for each Big Event, and those who get their forms in first, get their projects done first.
For more information, visit the JGISD Facebook page.
“For most people at the school,” Coulter said, “this day is their favorite day of the year.”
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