Jen Martinez Aguirre paused beside an overgrown shrub on the side of a Lincoln home, adjusting an electric hedge trimmer before guiding it back into thick branches. Though the battery was fading, she kept working until the job was done.
“It’s not always easy for people — especially if they’re older — to take care of things like this,” said Aguirre, a senior child, youth and family studies major from Grand Island. “I like knowing that what we do actually makes a difference for them.”
Aguirre was one of more than 260 University of Nebraska–Lincoln students who spread across Lincoln on April 11 for the Big Event, the university’s largest single-day service project. Now in its 20th year, the student-led effort connects volunteers with dozens of sites across the city, offering help with physically demanding work and reinforcing ties between campus and community.
