With a new initiative between the Lawrence school district and the local Big Brothers Big Sisters program, mentors can assist students with their curriculum — or just spark their love for reading.
Douglas County’s Big Brothers Big Sisters is a social service agency pairing youth with adult mentors in the community. Its new partnership with the Lawrence school district, called the “One Initiative,” is designed to help students be more confident with their reading. In turn, the district hopes reading scores will improve.
Jeffry Jack, Douglas County’s Big Brothers Big Sisters director, said the agency and the district are searching for more volunteers in the community. From retirees to working parents to college students, Jack said community members in different walks of life can positively impact kids through the One Initiative.
“This really benefits our entire community,” Jack said. “Rather than being a program that tries to deal with big problems by solving everything at once, we try to affect kids’ lives one at a time. And it takes one person to change one person’s life.”
Superintendent Anthony Lewis during a school board meeting on Sept. 26 said he hopes to eventually reach his grand goal of each student in the district having a mentor. Jack said the One Initiative is right in line with that.
The One Initiative is an expansion to BBBS’s site-based mentorship program. Adults who apply to be mentors at BBBS can be either site-based “Bigs,” meeting with their “Littles” at their schools or other school sites, or community-based, which allows Bigs and Littles to plan activities out in the community.
Mentors volunteering with the One Initiative dedicate at least 30 minutes per week before school, during a student’s lunch break or at their after school program. That time could be spent in part reading and in part talking and hanging out. Pairs can choose whether they’d like to read course curriculum or other selected books — whatever is most helpful to the student, Jack said.
Through the application process, BBBS considers compatibility as much as possible when making matches. Each mentor will be paired with a student for at least one school year, or longer if both so choose.
BBBS currently has 58 Douglas County students on its waitlist, Jack said. Around four adults are ready to be matched, and an additional 30 are in the process.
Mentorships are at no cost to the school district or to students and families, and mentors don’t have to spend money on their activities, he added.
Volunteers must be at least 18 years old and pass a background check. No experience working with children is required, Jack said.
Those interested in applying to be a site-based One Initiative mentor can do so on the “Become a Big” webpage, via the Kansas Big Brothers Big Sisters website.
Visit kansasbigs.org to learn more about the agency. Contact Jack via email at jjack@kansasbigs.org with questions.
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Maya Hodison (she/her), equity reporter, can be reached at mhodison (at) lawrencekstimes (dot) com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
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