After months of hard work, MSC FISH members were excited to host Kyle Field Day, an all-day service event designed to bring the community together.
Kyle Field Day took place Sunday, April 11 from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. on the northeast corner of Kyle Field. The event has been put on annually for the last 10 years by MSC Freshman in Service and Hosting, or MSC FISH. Along with its various service projects, the event includes performances by the Aggie Wranglers, Maroon Prestige, Aggieland Mariachi and more, as well as a food truck serving chicken and waffles.
According to MSC FISH’s website, Kyle Field Day is the largest freshmen-led service event held at Texas A&M.
“Putting on an event of this scale requires a dedicated and cohesive group of individuals to facilitate the year-long holistic planning process for not only our headline event, but also the Service FLO Down and Share Your Service booths,” the website reads. “We strive to find creative ways to spark a lasting passion for service, and all of our events reflect this desire.”
This year, health junior and MSC FISH assistant director of marketing Grace Simank said the event consisted of about 20 booths.
“All the booths are different organizations hosting service projects,” Simank said. “They range from making dog toys [and] writing notes to putting together bags for foster children [and] making a bench.”
Within their organization, Simank said there are different subcommittees, one of them being Kyle Field Day, or KFD, which spends the year planning the event.
“All year, members of the KFD committee work to put on this event,” Simank said. “We’re gathering information from different organizations wanting to host booths and anchor projects and contacting entertainment and advertising and things of that sort to prepare for it.”
Although events such as Kyle Field Day are designed to serve different philanthropic causes in the community, Simank said the organization’s freshmen who help plan and coordinate the event also benefit from the experience.
“It’s all freshman-focused, and it’s trying to develop freshmen, get them involved on campus, and give them a home in our organization,” Simank said. “We do that through these programs.”
Despite challenges that arose due to COVID-19, business administration freshman and MSC FISH member Taylor Lammi said she is proud that the event still came together.
“We’ve been working on this for the past four months, and as a freshman, you have no clue what this is supposed to look like,” Lammi said. “I’ve made a lot of friends in MSC FISH, so I’m looking forward to just hanging out with them today and doing a bunch of service, which is what we’re all here for.”
Lammi said both she and Simank feel the culmination of their hard work in action is a gratifying sight.
“I think I’m most excited to see the way everything is going to look and the way that everything comes together,” Lammi said. “We put in all this work, and like [Grace] said, it’s so rewarding to see the outcome of it.”