Big Brothers Big Sisters of Washtenaw County celebrated National Mentoring Month at Eastern Michigan University on January 31. 2009.This all-day celebration also marked the kick-off of our 2009 Male Recruitment Campain: The Year of the Big Brother!
The event was a success!
Little Brothers and Little Sisters currently on the waitlist were invited to attend and be matched with volunteers at the event - we had more than 35 volunteers matched with Littles for the day! They had an opportunity to join our current community-based matches and their families at this fun-filled celebration!
Bigs, Littles, Families, BBBS Staff, and Board Members got to enjoy lunch, meet the Zooperstars (below), and watch the Eastern Michigan University Boy's Basketball game!
We also had the opportunity to recruit volunteers at the event to become Bigs in the program. We distributed information and we were able to sign up a number of interested volunteers!
What a great way to start our 2009 Male Recruitment Campaign!!!
February
We are now on MySpace!!!!
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Washtenaw County has become a member of the MySpace community!
Please check us out and add us as a friend!
March
College Recruitment
We did some great things this month to recruit more Big Brothers at the local college campuses! We started by sending information to various Greek Organizations at both the University of Michigan and Eastern Michigan University! We also distributed posters, flyers, and business cards at popular on-campus hangouts!
April
Email Distribution
Great stuff this month!!!
Our staff, board members, current Big Brothers and Big Sisters sent the following email to all the people they know! Thanks everyone for your support!!!!
Boys are Born…Men are Created!
Become a Big Brother and Share the Wisdom!
PASS IT ON!!!
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Washtenaw County is a one-on-one mentoring program that matches adults who volunteer as mentors (“Big Brothers” or “Big Sisters”) with children who need an extra friend and role model (“Little Brothers” and “Little Sisters”). While these mentors build relationships with their Littles, we build a relationship with the mentors – guiding, coaching, and supporting.
Currently, there are close to 200 kids waiting in our program for the opportunity to be matched with a Big Brother or Big Sister. More than 70% of those kids are Little Brothers in need of a male role model. Our communities are in crisis and that is why Big Brothers Big Sisters is working to change how children grow up in America! We need more men to be Big Brothers so that we can achieve our goal – giving our Little Brothers a better chance at a better future!
We don’t need superheroes. We need real men who can hang out with a Little Brother in our program a couple of times a month for a year! It doesn’t cost a lot of money or require a college degree! It is about having fun and being an extra adult friend to a child!
To find out more about how you can become a “Big” in our program, visit our website at http://www.bbbswashtenaw.org or contact us at 734.975.0933!
Please forward this email to any man who you think would be a great Big Brother!!!
May
More Facebook!
We have now added a Facebook Group Site in addition to our Causes Page! The group pae is intended to be a place for current Bigs, supporters, staff, and interested members to find out what we are doing and how they can get involved! Check us out!
June
Photo Shoot!
We had our first ever Big Brother Little Brother photo shoot! Thank you so much to our Big Brother, Bruce and Little Brother, Tanaka! We had the pleasure of spending the day with our BB/LB duo at Ford Lake Park in Ypsilanti Township. We played raquetball, Tanaka showed us his unicycling skills, and enjoyed the water while tubing, swilmming, and water skiing. It was an absolute blast!!! Here are some pictures to show you how much fun we had!! Check out more pictures on our Big Brothers in Action page!
July
Church Recruitment
Thanks to our Ameri-Corps VISTA worker, we were able to reach out to hundreds of churches and congregations in Washtenaw County! We will be continuing to build relationships with these churches in order to recruit members to become Bigs in our program!
