Operation Blue and Gold is a day of service for students, faculty and staff to give back to the Commerce community.

While giving back is the main goal of this program, Operation Blue and Gold also provides a variety of community service and leadership opportunities for the students at Texas A&M University- Commerce.

“We provide leadership opportunities for our students through this event.” Katy Williams, assistant director of intercultural engagement and leadership, said. “We have site leaders and an event committee that helps plan and organize the day of an event and its festivities.”

Operation Blue and Gold has organized 25 events in the Commerce community with over 200 volunteers.

“We’ve sent volunteers to the Twin Oaks farm, we sent students to the lion’s food pantry and also the lion’s wardrobe and more,” Williams said.

This program focuses on both the university and the city because the university is a component of the city of Commerce.

“I think it’s pretty important because you don’t really see a lot of that happening especially when it comes to helping out the Commerce community.” Robert Segura, student assistant and operation blue and gold volunteer, said.

The students are active members in the community.

“Our students aren’t just people that want to stay inside and not do anything with our community, they actually want to get out and get to meet people and see the great things that commerce has to offer.” Williams said.

Operation Blue and Gold was first started about four years ago by a graduate assistant in the office of “Intercultural Engagement and Leadership” which was previously known as the “Leadership engagement and development” office.

“It is slightly modeled after a big event which is a day of service program that was started by A&M college station and it’s been adopted by multiple universities across the country.” Williams said

While this program is always successful in putting on events, there are still some obstacles that the students, faculty and staff occasionally have to face.

“You know some people will sign up and it’ll be a huge amount of people but when the day comes, half of those people probably won’t show up.” Segura said.

Despite the challenges that Operation Blue and Gold sometimes experiences, there are still people who are dedicated to making the program flourish.

“What makes it unique is that it’s just a really huge opportunity to get everyone together to strive for that one purpose of being helpful.” Segura said.

Students, faculty and staff can get involved by signing up through their new website at tamuc.givepulse.com.