Big Brothers Big Sisters is able to provide mentoring services through money raised through various fund-raisers throughout the year.
Read more: Local, Community, Big Brothers, Big Sisters of the Bay Area, Jig It, Kipling, Mentor
DELTA COUNTY -- It's an organization that mentors hundreds of youths throughout four counties in the southern U.P. Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Bay Area provides a number of mentoring programs, and with the help of an upcoming ice fishing tournament, they'll be able to provide even more.
Both Gladstone sixth grader Troy Pardon and Gladstone senior Casey Olson look forward to mentoring each week. Olson is among dozens of high schoolers who help younger students with school projects once a week through the Big Brothers Big Sisters "School to School" program. And both boys say it's well worth it.
"It really makes me feel good, I guess," explained Olson. "It's really fun, like I said, it's a big help to them and teaching them all kinds of stuff and it's really good. I like it."
"I look forward to it during the week because he helps me get power points done and we have fun while we're doing it," said Pardon.
There are seven different mentoring programs both in and outside the school through Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Bay Area. And they mentor well over 700 youth across Delta, Dickinson, Menominee and Marinette counties.
They're able to provide those services through money raised through various fund-raisers throughout the year, like the "Jig It" ice fishing tournament coming up at the end of the month. Last year, it raised over $10,000.
"You know, our youth are our resources and they're going to become leaders of our community, so we're helping by providing mentors to them at this small age," explained BBBS Executive Director, Tanya Schuster.
And with a good turnout this year, more mentoring programs could be in the works.
"We're actually working with Bay College right now to look at doing some one-on-one with Lego robotics," Schuster said. "So we're really trying to look outside the box at this time."
The "Jig It" tournament will be held Saturday, Jan. 30.
