Fraternities and sororities volunteer at The Big Event
Photo by Rylee Lingenfelter
LARAMIE, Wy. — On Saturday, October 3, University of Wyoming students worked on three community projects across Laramie as part of “The Big Event,” with some of the students volunteering being members of Greek Life.
Since 2013, the University of Wyoming’s Service Leadership and Community Engagement office (SLCE) has organized The Big Event, aiming to show appreciation and give thanks to the Laramie community for hospitality towards university students.
“We think it’s important for us to show our face in the community,” said Martin Szabo, the Recorder for UW’s Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter. Fraternities on campus have a really bad stigma around them, so we want to make ourselves present in the community. We want to show that we want to help out. We want to be involved.”
With 150 volunteers this year, UW students worked with 13 local organizations including: St. Paul’s United Church of Christ, Main Street Laramie, and the Lincoln Community Center.
Szabo was volunteering with his Fraternity brothers at St. Paul’s UCC, pulling weeds and polishing pews.
Working alongside them were members of Sigma Chi.
“We have our own community as members of fraternities, brothers, even in sororities with their sisters, but the best way we can give external exposure to us and what we value is by coming out here and really just [volunteering] our time to do it,” said Thomas Osterli, Sigma Chi member.
Virginia Vincent, a member of St. Paul’s UCC and organizer of their community project, explained that the work that The Big Event organizes does go a long way for these local organizations.
“They’re such a big help,” she said. “We have a lot of things going on with the church, but we also have a number of older members who really couldn’t be helping with this kind of thing.”
Downtown, The Big Event worked with Laramie Main Street to pick up trash and cover up graffiti in the Bison community parking lot.
Kim Jensen told The Branding Iron that volunteer work is needed for nonprofits like Laramie Main Street, helping to increase the number of business requests they can accomodate.
Alpha Phi member Catelyn Reckart helped pick up trash during The Big Event.
“I know from the outside looking in, community service on a Saturday might not be everyone’s picture of the perfect day, but it really is so rewarding,” she said. “Just getting to make the city just that much more pretty, and especially being here with my sister Madi.”
Gunner Hardy, a Sigma Alpha Phi member that helped remove graffiti tags from an electrical box, said “a lot of us are trying to give back to the community. Laramie is really good to us, takes good care of us. We want to try to turn around and take good care of it, so it means a lot for us to have the opportunity.”
Across the bridge in West Laramie, UW students worked to clean up the gardens at the Lincoln Community Center.
Greek Life weren’t the only student organization on the site, with Movimiento Estudiantil Chicana/o de Aztlán (MEChA) keeping their tradition of working at the Lincoln Community Center.
“We do it every year,” said Kevin Hernandez Lopez, a Co-Chair for MEChA. “We came here last year, we had a great time, so we just thought we’d come back. It’s always nice to come back and see familiar faces.”
Chavawn Kelly, a member of directors at the Lincoln Community Center says the center has been a part of The Big Event for almost 10 years, and it’s meaningful to have student organizations come back year after year.
“I was thinking about this this morning,” Kelly said, “the way students graduate, and come, and are gone. And yet with Sigma Nu in particular, there is that history. So I always look forward to seeing them.”
This volunteer work is representative of the Fraternity’s values, said Sigma Nu member Will Cuban.
“Our values are love, truth, and honor, and a big way for us to kind of show that to not only to the community in Laramie, but to our brothers, is by doing community service,” Cuban said.
Ending at 1 PM, volunteers received lunch and drinks for their work.
With another year of The Big Event in the books, Greek Life marked another day of community service.
