"Only two minutes, Zack is coming in two minutes!”
Every other week, seven-year-old Grant does a countdown until his Big Brother Zack Wessels shows up to whisk him away for an adventure. Sledding, swimming, Beach Bums baseball games, a visit to Great Wolf Lodge — the bottom line is to spend time together.
"He's fun!” said Grant, during a recent sledding expedition.
Wessels had friends who were involved in the program when he was in college. After hearing about it again via his gym, Fit For You, at their annual Lift for Kids program, Wessels decided to sign up to be a Big Brother. Relatively new to the area, his volunteer time lets him discover Traverse City through the eyes of a child.
"It's been fun and
rewarding, having things to do on the weekend and getting to know the community,” he said. "It's so easy to hang out with [Grant,] I look forward to it.”
Wessels contrasted the personal, one-on-one difference being a Big Brother can make with other volunteering he has done. Helping out at the Traverse City Film Festival last summer, for example, was a blast but being with Grant is a different level of contribution.
"[The Film Festival] was really good but it was more for myself than for someone else,” Wessels reflected. "This is so rewarding because it's more in person and you can see it directly.”
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northwestern Michigan has matched 350 children ages 6-18 with mentors in their ten-county service area. The program offers two levels of matching: a school-based program offered at more than 20 regional schools or the traditional one-on-one community-based matches.
In addition to rigorous screening and background checks, including home visits and references, the Big Brothers Big Sisters program emphasizes quality over quantity. Volunteers know that joining means taking on a obligation to spend time with a match for the long haul.
"It is a big commitment, not something you say, 'Oh, sure, I'll do this for a couple of months before I bail out of it,'” said Wessels.
The average cost to provide services for a match is $1,000, noted Christie Carlson, the organization's development director, and individuals can team up or a business can donate for their holiday corporate giving.
"You want to give something that has meaning so this is one of the avenues we're offering for businesses or individuals over the holidays,” she said. "If you give up a cup of coffee a day, you're already supporting half a match - you can get together with a co-worker to cover a whole match.”
"You're changing two lives, really, when you adopt a match,” Carlson added.
Carlson knows this from her own experiences as a Little Sister growing up in Chattanooga, Tenn. When she was seven or eight years old, she was a latchkey kid because her single mother worked nights as a nurse.
Her mom learned about the Big Brothers Big Sisters program and enrolled Carlson right away. After the screening process, Carlson was matched with a high school senior. They would go roller-skating, go out for pizza and share other activities on a regular basis.
"I thought the world of her, we were together over three years,” recalled Carlson, who this year reconnected with her Big Sister thanks to the Internet. "She told me, 'I didn't realize how much of an impact I had on you because you made more of an impact on me; as a teenager, you helped me keep my priorities straight.'”
After working in the health care field herself, Carlson joined the staff of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northwestern Michigan in June.
"I just kind of wanted to be a part of something that changed my life 20 years ago,” she said.
For more information on Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northwestern Michigan or the Adopt-A-Match program, contact the organization at 946-2447 or see their web site www.bigsupnorth.com.