Exciting news! With the recent merger of Nutmeg Big Brother Big Sisters and Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southwestern Connecticut, the new combined organization – Big Brothers Big Sisters of Connecticut – now covers all of the state’s 169 municipalities.
Christine and Salt chatted with BBBS President & CEO Andy Fleischmann about the merger. Andy reveals even though you must be 21 to be a Big, there's a college program that allows 18 year old students to mentor Littles, "if you're an elementary school or middle school child and who shows up to be your mentor, but a college undergraduate wearing their college sweatshirt...that's pretty exciting and inspiring."
Also, women tend to heed the call to volunteer as a Big more often than men. Andy says, "if there are men who have been thinking about it, there's definitely boys out there who could use a male mentor, particularly kids from minority backgrounds."
Andy adds that because there are more women than men who volunteer, they could use more girls as Littles in the program, "if there are moms listening who think their daughters could benefit from a Big Sister, we could welcome some more girl volunteers right now."
Andy knows it's a tough time in the world right now, "there's not much many of us can do to help people who are refugees in Eastern Europe, but we can help kids in our community who simply need a bit more adult time, attention and care." Check out the full interview below and click here to become a Big today.
