At any given time, the waitlist at Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northern Nevada has 150 kids on it.
It’s not the same 150 kids—applicants are matched as soon as volunteers become available—but when a new spot opens on the list, community partners fill it within 48 hours using a referral system, according to CEO Derek Beauvais.
“We always have a huge waitlist of kids,” he said.
Local youth who enter the program are in need of mentorship for a variety of reasons, and in northern Nevada enrollment is limited to youth whose family qualifies for low-income benefits. The youth participants are called littles, while the adult volunteers who sign up to mentor them are referred to as bigs.
In all, BBBSNN has 240 big-and-little partnerships at this time. “It’s really about making matches that we believe will be quality and long lasting,” Beauvais said.
The organization is a local chapter of the national network of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. BBBSNN operates as an independent, local nonprofit. It was founded as a satellite connected to Big Brothers Big Sisters of Nevada based in Las Vegas before becoming its own independent arm of the organization in 2005.
There are 16 full-time staff members operating the Reno-based organization, but volunteers have an active role in running the organization. The staff offer support to bigs, littles and littles’ families. Eleven of the employees are direct service staff members including match support professionals, enrollment specialists in charge of recruitment, and volunteer specialists.
In these roles, staffers support families in need with any crisis. For example, if a little’s family is getting evicted, the emotional support responsibility to the little may be that of the big, but other help is offered by BBBSNN to connect with community resources.
BBBSNN also has a partnership with Fit Learning that provides literacy and math support to littles who are struggling or falling behind grade level.
The match system is specialized. Kids are not assigned to volunteers on a first-come, first-serve basis. When a new volunteer enters the program, they are matched with a child on the waitlist who staffers think they will best be able to help. Some kids have academic goals, in which case they are matched with a big that has an interest in academic support.
Beauvais said BBBSNN boasts a 94% graduation rate for littles in their program over the past five years, which is higher than the overall graduation rate for kids with similar backgrounds. They also boast a 100% success rate for avoiding the juvenile justice system in the same time period.
Beauvais said having a mentor grants kids opportunity but also provides a caring adult to give support and guidance when they need it most.
Beauvais, who has been a big for five years, was matched with his then-13-year-old little based on a shared love of basketball. He says having the sport in common helped them bond in the beginning. Now they can enjoy one-on-one time in a variety of activities, but when they first met, they’d play basketball together to break the ice.
Those who want to volunteer as bigs in the program must be 18 years of age or older and go through a background check including fingerprinting and an interview. If accepted for the program, bigs undergo a half-day training. There is additional training available and bigs may be assigned by support staff to address specific situations that can arise with a big-little relationship or in the little’s home life.
That training, as well as annual surveys, are part of the benefit provided by the larger Big Brothers Big Sisters of America organization and help BBBSNN to measure their success against other chapters in a variety of categories.
All bigs are asked to commit to a minimum of one year of mentorship when signing up.
To learn more about volunteering, visit www.bbbsnn.org.
