ODESSA, Texas — In Odessa, people of all ages gathered at Slator Park to cleanup parts of the city that needed a little TLC.
"When we look across a field like that, I think the thing that makes it so sad is, I don't it really represents who we are as a city and as a county," said Becky Battershell with The Sandstorm Aggies Mom Club.
With the help of keep Odessa Beautiful, 'The Big Event' made it's way to Odessa from College Station.
"An event that started 40 years ago at Texas A&M where six students went out into the community into the cemetery to clean it up to thank the community for allowing them to go to college and live in their community," Battershell said. "Since then, that effort has grown to over 20,000 volunteers on this particular day across the united states and the world. People go out into their community to create good will."
Volunteers spread out all throughout the city to pick up trash and things that can be recycled.
"We decided to pick areas in our community that needed to be cleaned up and as we're cleaning up those products were going to actually take those to the Odessa Recycle Center," Battershell said.
The Big event is also a teaching opportunity.
"It's empowering for young people because it gives them an opportunity to bring something to their families and say hey, we really can do this better, these are just some things we can do better," Battershell said. "I think when you teach something it's a very empowering stance to have so I feel by educating young people it's going to give them some empowerment and some accountability."
From here, the hope is The Big Event can turn into big change.
"That's the goal, for it to start off small but make a big impact," Battershell said. "Our goal is if everybody does a little bit then nobody has to do it all."