This was featured in the Waterloo School District Fall Newsletter. - Thank you Berit for a wonderful article

Waterloo Big Brothers-Big Sisters
By Berit Ericson
Big Brothers-- Big Sisters is the largest, oldest, and most effective mentoring program in our country. It creates a long-lasting impact on all the children-ranging in age from six to eighteen- involved. The point of the program is to help kids reach their full potential by providing a one on one relationship with their mentor. Kids involved in Big Brothers-- Big Sisters have proved to be more comfortable in school, better able to get along with others, are twenty seven percent less likely to abuse alcohol, are forty six percent less likely to use drugs, and are fifty two percent less likely to skip school. Big Brothers-- Big Sisters has existed for over a century and is active in all fifty states and twelve countries worldwide.

Big Brothers--Big Sisters mentors are very special people. They have to put in their applications and have four qualified references. These references are contacted and asked numerous questions about the mentor-to-be. After this stage, it's on to the face-to-face interview process. A Big Brothers--Big Sisters professional will take about twenty minutes to ask the mentors about their lives and why they think they would be a good Big. A few days later, the Bigs will be contacted with the names of their new Littles. The matches are all watched by professionals to be sure that the matches are safe and good for the child's needs, and, most importantly, that they are built to last. That is the main cause for the enormous amount of time put into applications and interviews. Big Brothers--Big Sisters professionals also provide support for Bigs in case of an issue with their Little and their family. The professionals give guidance to the Little and their family as well.

As for Waterloo, Illinois, Big Brothers Big Sisters has existed in our community for six years. When the program was first started, there were fifty matches between Waterloo High School students and students at Zahnow Elementary, Rogers Elementary, and Waterloo Junior High School. The second year of the program, there were eighty matches. In the following years, the number of matches has been between ninety and one hundred. This year there are about one hundred and eighty kids, or ninety matches although there are approximately twenty-five more Littles still waiting to be matched. Waterloo School District has the largest Big Brothers Big Sisters program in the Southern Illinois District.

The resource staffs at Waterloo High School, along with Big Brothers--Big Sisters professionals, are in the planning stages of creating another mentoring program, where adults would have Littles and be able to have lunch with their matches during the week. The hope is for high school students to also be able to have mentors as the program gets off the ground. Anyone who needs a positive role model or is interested in a particular field can be involved. There is an upcoming barbeque scheduled to treat all the Bigs for all their hard work. Instead of sleeping in on delayed start Mondays, all Bigs from Waterloo High School are wide awake and ready to go spend time with their Littles. That takes a lot of dedication to make that choice to make a difference in a child's life.