A Look Into One of the Volunteer Sites From Big Event

UCO students volunteered with Big Event to serve the Edmond community and the surrounding areas on Saturday by hosting multiple community sites throughout the metro.

As part of Site 1, participants in the organization Pi Kappa Alpha went to Midwest City to help the Riverside Community.

The Riverside Community’s goal is to create a safe, clean, and affordable park that residents can rent to own. Community Manager Duana Newcomb said that they have a few renters, but mostly want to make people homeowners regardless of their financial situation.

“I’ve sat at that signing table and cried with people when they thought they never would be able to own a house,” said Newcomb.

 Riverside Community has a food pantry and helps residents with finding furniture and maintenance.

“It’s such a blessing because we’re on such a short budget. We have around five maintenance guys, but they stay busy redoing houses. So, having this group helps in more ways than you could possibly imagine,” said Newcomb.

During Big Event, Site 1 volunteers helped organize and budget a community garden with an irrigation system and solar pump, filled Easter Eggs, made mini greenhouses, and picked up trash across the property. The largest project done by the group was transporting around 4 tons of dirt, from a pile that had been there for a year, to one of the homes, which is in a flood area.

This is the fifth consecutive Big Event that the Riverside Community has partnered with, and their first time doing a Little Event was last fall.

“I was praying for this group of guys to come back because there are a lot of groups like Habitat For Humanity and neighborhood services that won’t help us because our residents live in mobile homes,” said Newcomb.

From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., 10 members of Pi Kappa Alpha helped at Peppers Ranch Foster Care Community, and 20 assisted at the Riverside Community.

During the service project, Ryne Anders, the president of the organization, was the Team Leader at Riverside. Anders, who participated in Big and Little Events in 2025, helped coordinate tasks, transported tools to the site, cut and filled milk jugs for the mini greenhouses, and planted spinach, pumpkins, carrots, and turnips.

“I think it’s great that college students are willing to go out and volunteer,” said Anders.

“As the president of Pike, it’s pretty encouraging to see these guys serve the community.”

Big and Little Events are student-led community service opportunities held once a semester. The mission of these events is to help out the surrounding neighborhoods. Non-profit organizations and local businesses.

More information for Big Event and Little Event can be found on social media @ucobigevent or on their web page