BLINN-BRENHAM STUDENTS GIVE BACK THROUGH BUCCANEER BIG EVENT

  

More than 60 Blinn College students recently volunteered to complete a variety of service projects as part of the 2017 Buccaneer Big Event.

The event included six projects in and around the Brenham area, and was spearheaded by the Texas A&M Engineering Academy at Blinn-Brenham.

“We were able to finish all of our projects, so that was extremely beneficial to the community,” said Isaiah Young, President of the Buccaneer Big Event.

Students constructed a wheelchair ramp, painted the High Hope Care Center, laid down mulch for three Brenham city parks, cleaned the Brenham Fitness Center, performed landscaping for New Beginnings Pregnancy Center, and painted over 50 trash cans for the city.

“It was a good experience to give back to the community,” said Brodee Lee, an engineering student from Queen Creek, Ariz.

The Texas A&M Engineering Academy (TEAM) at Blinn-Brenham is offered in partnership with Texas A&M University’s Dwight Look College of Engineering. Academy students participate in a living and learning community in which they live together in the Blinn College Park Apartments and take their first-year math, science and engineering courses together. Texas A&M engineering courses are taught on the Blinn-Brenham campus by Texas A&M faculty.

Blinn’s commitment to serving the community has earned the College a spot on the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll, the highest accolade an educational institution can receive from the federal government for its commitment to community, service learning and civic engagement, for the sixth time. In 2015, Blinn was recertified with the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching’s Carnegie Classification, which places Blinn among the nation’s top 5 percent of colleges and universities in terms of documented public service.

Blinn’s Service Learning Program, which combines community service with classroom instruction and student club activities, focuses on critical, reflective thinking, and civic responsibility to engage students. Blinn’s Service Learning activities include the Dental Hygiene Program’s annual Give Kids a Smile event in Bryan, which provides exams, X-rays, cleanings, sealants and oral health education to local children without access to regular dental care; EMS, vocational nursing and associate degree nursing students volunteering at local clinics and hospitals; natural science students volunteering at local animal shelters; agricultural students working with Texas Parks and Wildlife and 4-H organizations; and social sciences students volunteering at local Democratic and Republican headquarters.

For more information about Blinn’s commitment to community service and its Service Learning Program, visit www.blinn.edu/servicelearning.