Volunteer to help a ‘Little’ brother, sister grow up
January 27, 2007, The Daily News Journal (Tennessee)

By LOWELL PERRY

Through the ages, friends, community and church elders, aunts and uncles have taken young people by the hand and helped them through the rocky shoals of life. These helping hands have turned lives around, providing guidance and hope. January is designated National Mentoring Month. What better way to commemorate the occasion than to recognize the importance of mentors, seek to recruit additional men and women for this important volunteer role, and thank those who have given so generously of themselves.

National Mentoring Month is a joint project of the Corporation for National and Community Service, The Harvard Mentoring Project, and MENTOR. This collaboration has served to bring mentoring to the forefront, but the act of volunteering to help guide young people is ages old. The first formal youth mentoring program — which later became Big Brothers Big Sisters — began more than 100 years ago in New York City. Then, Ernest Coulter, a clerk in family court, called together the men's group of his church and asked them to stand with him to help young boys seek their dreams. In the Middle Tennessee area, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Middle Tennessee was established more than 38 years ago, originally known as Buddies of Nashville.

Today there are 250,000 "Big Brothers" and "Big Sisters" throughout the country mentoring young people through caring, one-to-one relationships. Locally, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Middle Tennessee served a record 1,517 children in 2006. But there is still much work to be done as the need is great. We have approximately 300 children waiting to be matched, over two-thirds of which are boys.

People like Isaac Conner, a Nashville attorney who has been matched with Little Brother Trey for the past two years. Upon moving to Nashville, Isaac wanted to volunteer with children — but he had to be realistic with the time demands of a young attorney. As he learned more about Big Brothers Big Sisters, he knew mentoring was the perfect opportunity for him. Isaac and Trey work on academics together, focusing on reading. Conner will cite the flexibility offered by Big Brothers Big Sisters — and how the minor amount of time spent with his Little Brother at a sporting event or going out to eat, for example, is so important to a young person's life.

Isaac's story is not uncommon, we are told time and time again that our volunteer mentors feel like they get much more out of their friendship with their Little Brother or Sister than the child does ... and that volunteering as a mentor is something they can't imagine not doing.

Big Brothers Big Sisters particularly needs men right now to help young boys, like Trey once was, find companionship and friendship that make a big difference to both the "Big" and the "Little."

Think about it. For more information, to volunteer as a "Big Brother" or "Big Sister" or to donate, go to www.bbbsmt.org or call (615) 329-9191 today!