The Big Event’s Big Impact: One Aggie Reflects on the Meaning of Selfless Service

What one encounter reminded me about the beauty of serving others.

By Blake Guerra ’25

Lead photo provided by Cushing Memorial Library and Archives

Walking into the Jon L. Hagler Center early that Saturday, I was exhausted after another week in the books. The countless hours spent planning next semester’s Big Event had begun to weigh on me, but the energy of the early morning game day tailgate pepped me up. As I sipped my coffee, a former student, the late Liz Ezell ’79, approached me, her curiosity piqued by my white Big Event button-up shirt.

Blake Guerra ’25 served as a previous executive on The Big Event’s staff. Photo by Josh Huskin.

I learned that she had participated in The Big Event for many years and had grown fond of our volunteers. She revealed to me that shortly before her first Big Event, her husband had passed away. Still grieving, she invited our volunteers to her home to complete a special project—the restoration of a garden built by her late husband. Since then, her garden had become a memorial for him and had been maintained by our volunteers year after year, which later inspired her to create an endowment for our organization. Her story captivated me, and it solidified my time as an executive for The Big Event as the most impactful experience of my college career.

To many in the Aggie community, The Big Event takes place one Saturday morning in late March. But for the nearly 400 executive, committee and staff members who make up the organization, planning begins in late May, nearly a year before the first volunteers arrive at their job sites. A national conference, gala and countless meetings take place leading up to the big day, all with the goal of expressing gratitude to the Bryan-College Station community. Each year, students raise tens of thousands of dollars through donations from companies and individuals—funds that support over 16,000 students who volunteer to serve nearly 2,500 residents in the community. We even hand-count nearly 50,000 tools to ensure everyone is served.

As an executive, the job’s constant demand made it easy to lose sight of why I worked so hard for The Big Event, with only a few interactions throughout the year with the people we served. Hearing how our organization had impacted Liz washed that feeling away in an instant and sparked an important realization. Many of the residents we serve do not “need” our help in the traditional sense. If The Big Event were to suddenly stop, no one’s life would be uprooted. But The Big Event exists to create stories like hers, and by doing so strengthens the bonds between generations of Aggies through service. To me, that is its beauty.

More than 16,000 Aggies volunteer each year to give back to the Bryan-College Station community. Volunteers help with indoor or outdoor tasks, including cleaning, painting and yard work.

Students have volunteered more than 1 million hours through The Big Event. As the nation’s largest one-day, student-run service project, The Big Event puts Aggies’ selfless service on full display.

The event took off after Joe Nussbaum ’84, then vice president of the Student Government Association, kicked off the concept in 1982 as a way for students to express their gratitude to the community.

Before disbursing to job sites, volunteers gather at The Big Event’s kickoff celebration, which will continue inspiring Aggies for generations thanks to an endowment from the late Liz Ezell ’79.

Everyone from the director to volunteers participates in The Big Event not because the community depends on us but because we care so deeply about connecting with the Bryan-College Station residents whom we as Aggies feel called to serve—and to simply say thank you for welcoming us into their home. As I think about the joy that The Big Event brought Liz, I can’t help but feel incredibly fulfilled knowing I played a part in her story, and I’m grateful to know that as The Big Event grows, it will create more stories like hers.

Blake Guerra ’25 is a business management-entrepreneurship major from Austin. In his free time, he loves to see live music and will never pass up an opportunity to try new food. Blake enjoys all things outdoors, particularly trail running, and watching Aggie football with his friends. After graduation, he plans to enter either the commercial real estate industry or professional fundraising with the hope of being the chef of his own restaurant one day.