![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/The-Big-Event-Pic-576x1024.jpg\")
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Students gather for service. (Nat Nguyen\/FAMUAN)\u00a0<\/p>\n
On\u00a0Feb.\u00a021, college students from universities across Tallahassee traded sleeping in for service.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The sound of a live band welcomed students as they arrived\u00a0at Langford Green and received their official \u201cThe Big Event Tallahassee\u201d service shirts, marking the start of a day focused on giving back.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Big Event Tallahassee is one of the largest student-run service events in the city, bringing together students from Florida State University, Florida A&M University and Tallahassee State College. Through projects like yard work, gardening and neighborhood cleanups, students spend the day helping\u00a0residents, nonprofits and organizations as a way of saying\u00a0\u201cthank you\u201d\u00a0to the community they call home during college.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Planning an event of this size takes months of preparation. Valentina Marin,\u00a0logistics\u00a0chair for The Big Event and a senior management information systems major at Florida State University, helped organize volunteer assignments and service sites.\u00a0Marin said the hardest part of her role was managing the large number of students involved.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis event got like 1,000 volunteers, so\u00a0there were\u00a0a lot of names to manage and organize and send to different service sites,\u201d Marin said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For many students, the day meant more than just earning service hours. Lauren\u00a0Batache, a second-year criminology major at Florida State University, volunteered through her organization, Service Scholars, after taking part in the event in the past.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0She helped with gardening and yard work at a residential home and said her favorite part was \u201cgetting to talk to the homeowner and see why the work we did mattered to her.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Florida A&M University sophomore Camron Curry, an environmental studies major, also volunteered while\u00a0representing\u00a0Progressive Black Men Incorporated.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMy favorite part about today was going to the Joseph House, which is a place for incarcerated people that have to transition to regular civilian life,\u201d Curry said. \u201cI met a lot of great people that are trying to correct their lives, so it was an experience.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Organizers say the event shows how small efforts can make\u00a0a big difference\u00a0when students work together. Marin said the impact comes from everyone contributing in their own way.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf everyone just puts a little bit of\u00a0effort,\u00a0something great\u00a0happens,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
By the end of the day, students from different campuses\u00a0worked\u00a0side by side across Tallahassee, showing how community service can bring people together and leave a lasting impact beyond the classroom.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Students gather for service. (Nat Nguyen\/FAMUAN)\u00a0 On\u00a0Feb.\u00a021, college students from universities across Tallahassee traded sleeping in for service.\u00a0\u00a0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":187628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[232,234,233],"class_list":["post-187627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}