The Big Event

On Sunday, April 23, a small army of SUNY Cortland students will once again spread out into the Cortland community, cleaning, painting and otherwise sprucing up their town, as The Big Event returns after a three-year COVID-19 interruption.

Planning progresses with 405 volunteers to date who registered by the March 24th deadline, said Anneka Bowler, the Student Government Association president and the catalyst for restarting the fairly new campus tradition. That will include student groups such as the athletic teams men's volleyball and women's rugby, and the Greek organizations Delta Phi Epsilon, Sigma Delta Tau.

Organizers now are mainly focused on finding community members and organizations that are in need of help getting their properties ready for spring and arranging for the student volunteers to be shuttled where they are most needed, Bowler said.

On April 23, registered volunteers should check in at 9 a.m. in the Corey Union Function Room. The event kickoff will feature remarks by SUNY Cortland President Erik J. Bitterbaum, Bowler and potentially others. The Big Event lasts until 2 p.m.

Volunteer work may include raking leaves, cleaning up trash, painting front porch steps, and any other requests SGA receives from community members. Volunteers are encouraged to bring their own equipment but the SGA will supply tools to those who don't bring them.

For more information, contact Bassett. Updates will be available on the Cortland SGA Instagram page.