A yellow school bus unloaded into Mississippi State University’s Sanderson Center gym Friday afternoon, carrying elementary students from the Starkville School District’s  (SSD) special education program. For an hour the students ran, threw balls, rode scooters, hoola-hooped and any combination thereof with MSU student volunteers.
Friday marked March’s “Bulldogs on the Move” a joint effort between Pi Kappa Phi, SSD and the Maroon Volunteer Center to provide an recurring event where every elementary special education student in the city can meet one another and not only stretch his or her legs, but also build valuable and lasting connections with classmates and members of the MSU student body. 
“This is really important to her,” Event organizer Jacob Boyer said while gesturing to a young girl in a red wheelchair. “She is normally very sedentary, but here we get her to play catch, and she loves hanging out with the other girls.” 
Boyer, along with co-chair Ben Thomas, orchestrates the Bulldogs on the Move program. He said that the focus of the program is not to simply provide the elementary kids with physical fitness and a place to play, but also to enable MSU students to become involved with lives and build bonds they would not otherwise have an opportunity to build.
“It’s not just recess,” said Jan Houston, who teaches special needs children at Henderson Elementary. “A student will reach specifically out to one of our students, and they get that one on one connection.”
Several of the volunteers that day have come back to help with the activity days multiple times. Boyer said he sees the volunteers that return often spend time with students they played with in the past.
“I feel like it is fun to get out and get to know all of the kids,” Chloe Wilks said, a freshman biological chemistry major, who started going to ‘Bulldogs on the Move’ days last fall. Wilks said she participated in a similar program at her high school. 
Boyer said Pi Kappa Phi funds the events, provides the money to rent the gym, as well as pays for and rents the equipment the kids use. 
In addition to paying for the space and equipment, Boyer, who is a Special Education major,  said one of his goals for the program is to have an additional, separate, ‘‘sensory center’’ for the kids who are less inclined to join in on a half court basketball game and would rather sit calmly. 
Boyer said objects with interesting textures and properties, such as kinetic sand, are very alluring to some of the more reclusive students who would rather play quietly and chat softly. 
Contrary to the introverted children who collect themselves around the sides of the room, there are plenty such as Teontae Stafford, who at one point ran up to Boyer proudly wearing Boyer’s own hat. 
“Some like to do their own thing but hang out in the center of the room because its a little more inclusive,” Boyer said.
Coop Parker, one of Boyer’s Pi Kappa Phi brothers who chairs the fraternity’s national Philanthropy, said their national philanthropy, The Ability Experience, involves many programs such as ‘‘Bulldogs on the Move’’, and because of that, a portion of the money its raise for The Ability Experience each year actually comes back to the fraternity to fund the program. 
“It’s not every day that a fraternity can promote their philanthropy once a week. It’s really beneficial to us,” Parker said. 
While Boyer and Thomas do most of the organizing for the event, Boyer said they rely on the Maroon Volunteer Center to fill the ranks.