This past Saturday, Austin College held its 16th annual Great Day of Service. In my last article, I had discussed doing a video on GDS, but unfortunately my video editing software was being ridiculous. However, I thought I'd talk a little bit about what we did.

I was the site leader for my sorority, Iota Eta. We volunteered to help one of our sponsors, Heidi Rushing, at the Dia de los Muertos Festival in Denison. We had a lot of fun doing it - we helped to run a coloring contest for the community. Everyone who wanted to enter colored sugar skulls and then the skulls were separated into age groups; under eight, nine to fourteen, fifteen to twenty, and 21 and up. The winner of each age group was awarded a prize, and everyone had a lot of fun doing it. We also took the school's art bus, and some of the students helped supervise while people painted on it:

They even had a huge parade, which is part of what you see above. Many different groups from the community participated, and everyone had a lot of fun. A large part of the parade was made up of puppets made from people and groups all over the community.

And of course, our lovely sponsor Heidi, as Quetzalcoatl.

As much fun as we had, it felt even better to be able to serve our community with a group of people we really enjoy being around. I encourage everyone to go out into their community and serve as much as they can. It helps to not only build a stronger community, but it is rewarding on so many levels. As one of our members, Harris Drake, put it, "not only do you get to go out into the community and serve and help and see what goes on, but you also get to do it with a group of your friends... it's a great way to bond and give back to the community."