Big Brothers, Big Sisters looking for younger mentors

“It’s really fun, I like hanging out with him,” Luker said during a recent interview. “He’s a cool guy.”

“It was definitely one of the most rewarding things I did last year,” Moline added.

Moline is a member of the Medicine Hat College Rattlers volleyball team, and signed up after learning about the program from his coach.

“I really liked kids, I really liked being involved with them, so I knew it was something that I would really, like enjoy doing,” he said.

When he signed up for the program, he completed a personality test and interview, which Big Brothers and Big Sisters uses to help match mentors to kids in the program, and find appropriate matches. Moline, who is outgoing, was matched with Luker, and the pair hit it off quickly.

“The first day, we did a Lego project, and then it got broken it his car,” Luker recalls. “We had to build it all over again, but it wasn’t that much.”

Moline remembers playing a board game in one of their first meetings.

“The first thing he grabbed was Candyland, the board game,” he said. “That was a game I played all throughout elementary and middle school and loved it. We talked about that, our lies and dislikes, it was awesome.”

When they meet, the pair will play games, do activities, and play outside if the weather is nice enough.

“If I say, let’s go outside and play, we play, something like grounders or whatever,” Luker said.

“We’d hang out, and I’d always look forward to seeing what he did on the weekend or what happened at school and stuff, so it was an awesome experience for me,” said Moline.

Moline was matched with Keaton through the in-school mentoring program Big Brothers and Big Sisters offers.

Melissa Pearl, mentor coordinator with the local chapter of Big Brothers, Big Sisters, says the organization has been focused on trying to find younger mentors for children in the program, and notes they’ve been trying to educate people about the commitment required for the program.

“Everyone has busy schedules, and we understand that,” she said. “We require two to four hours a week for our traditional program, one hour a week for our in-school mentoring, so it’s not a huge time commitment, but it’s getting people to understand that it’s not a huge time commitment.

“We also encourage those free activities, so it’s not a financial burden on mentors as well, because obviously, young people who might just be entering the workforce, or still in college, may struggle with that.”

Pearl says the time commitment is small, but it has a big impact on everyone, including the mentor.

“They come in thinking they’re just going to hang out with the kid, they’re going to do some fun activities, and that’s it, but these kids pull on their heart strings, they’re going to all of their activities, they’re family,” she said. “The biggest thing is they become family.”

It’s an impact Moline has noticed.

“He definitely made one on my life,” he said. “Definitely, kind of hearing his life and stuff, so I hope I did the same for him, because he had such a big impact on my life.”

Pearl says Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Medicine Hat currently has 12 kids in the traditional program awaiting mentors, the majority of them being boys. Pearl says in-school mentoring matches are created by calling the schools in the community and determining if there are any children who could benefit from a match.

Anyone interested in becoming a mentor can reach out to Big Brothers, Big Sisters by calling 403-527-6640.

by Charles Lefebvre

Big Brothers, Big Sisters looking for younger mentors

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