The Tarleton Leadership and Service Department is currently working towards hosting its 22nd Annual Round Up event.

Tarleton Round Up is a one-day event where students volunteer their time to provide community service to the residences and businesses of Stephenville, Texas.

Tarleton and its students are known for honoring the core value of service by serving the community with events like this. Round Up will take place on March 28, 2020. This year’s Round Up will have a focus on growing the event into a better version of itself.

“This year we want to see a 10 percent increase in participants,” Student Director of Round Up, Ericka Key said. Last year’s event had 1,650 participants.

Tarleton is still looking for students to sign up for the event. Currently, there are roughly 150 students signed up, 93 of those students are from the Stephenville Campus.

Students on the Stephenville Campus can sign up to participate in Round Up through TexanSync. The current priority deadline for students to sign up is Feb. 24 at noon, and the final deadline to sign up being on March 1. Students who sign up before the priority deadline will be guaranteed a 2020 Round Up shirt when they arrive to participate. Breakfast and lunch will be provided to all participating students along with snacks and drinks.

Round Up will also be conducted at the Fort Worth, Midlothian, and Waco campuses. This year will mark the first year that Round Up is also held at the Waco campus. The other campus will be hosting the event in a similar manner to that of the Stephenville Campus.

The other campuses will have recruiting teams and recruiting events to help increase volunteers. Students from the outreach campuses can access the volunteer application at tarleton.edu/roundup to sign up to volunteer at their respective campus.

On Feb. 13, there will be a tabling event to boost recruitment for this year’s Round Up at the Barry B. Thompson Student Center at the Stephenville campus. A food drive will also be held on Feb. 13 to help with the event.

Tabling events at the Fort Worth, Midlothian and Waco campuses will also be held throughout Feb. and early March to promote and encourage
students to sign up.

The Round Up Leadership Team is still looking at potential job sites. Currently, 40 job sites have been inspected and approved for the day of Round Up. Residents who would like to register their home as a job site can fill out an application on tarleton.edu/roundup and will be contacted by a member of the Round Up job site team. The deadline to submit applications for job sites is March 1.

Round Up leadership is also looking for small businesses to act as sponsors for the event. Sponsors allow for Tarleton Round Up to have the funding they need to make the event possible.

According to Sponsorship team leader, Casey Reynolds, individuals who are interested in becoming a sponsor can email [email protected]. Individuals can also contact the Round Up office at 254-968-1899 for more details.

Individuals can make donations to Tarleton Round Up. A link to the donation site can be found at tarleton.edu/roundup. Once on the site, donors can click the “Make a Donation” button, enter the amount they would like to donate, and select “Tarleton Round Up” from the list of options.

“By donating or sponsoring Tarleton Round Up, we get the chance to add value to the money they donate because we give it back to the Stephenville community,” Reynolds said.

While this year’s Round Up will be taking a familiar path as past Round Ups, there are plans to make future Round Ups walk upon a brighter path.

“In the future, we want to have some sort of band similar to other universities who do big events like Round Up. We want to make the event bigger in the future with a bigger after concert,” Key said.

Tarleton’s Round Up event takes a lot of planning and coordination. According to Key the event takes eight months to plan and coordinate. The planning includes the recruitment and work of a 31-Texan team of students who work on various tasks and jobs that help make Round Up possible. From registering volunteers inspecting job sites, finding sponsors for the event, meeting with outreach campus faculty and students, to designing content for social media sites, this team works diligently to ensure students get the opportunity to participate in Round Up and serve their community.

With all this being said this year’s Round Up is sure to be as successful as years past. Because of all of the hard work that Tarleton’s staff and students have been putting in, Round Up should continue to be a grand success in years to come.