Our Story
Long before the white man, and long before the wheel…
Wait a second, that’s a Gordon Lightfoot song. We haven’t been around that long. We’ve been creating friendships that change lives since 1970. Back then it was just matching Big Brothers with Little Brothers. It’s grown to so much more.
The Kiwanis social club established a Big Brothers board of directors on December 29, 1969. By February of 1970, Big Brothers had incorporated and began pairing adults with kids. It wasn’t long until we became a United Way agency, earning that place of honor in 1973.
In 1976 Big Brothers put on its first, “Bowl for Millions” campaign. The success of pairing bowling with mentoring has lasted until this day, supporting thousands and thousands of mentoring relationships. Despite it’s financial success, Big Brothers didn’t employ a full-time caseworker until 1986.
Despite all the help Big Brothers did for boys, no programs existed for mentoring girls. So Big Sisters came to Stratford in 1977. They beat Big Brothers record, taking only 2 years to become a United Way member agency.
After 16 more years of separate growth, Big Brothers proposed to Big Sisters to become one agency in 1995. It took Big Sisters 3 years to accept, but they did, and on July 1, 1998, they officially joined, never again to separate.
Through the many matches that Big Brothers and Big Sisters did, we found that some people who wanted to volunteer just didn’t feel like they had the time to participate in a long-term match. So in 2004, we created new programs to enable more people to volunteer with less time.
Our In-School Mentoring program allowed for business employees to donate 1 hour a week during their worktime. Skill-based programs opened up the possibility of adults giving their expertise one time or over a series of weeks. If there’s any desire on the part of adults to invest in young people, Big Brothers Big Sisters opens up the possibility to share. It’s that attitude that keeps changing more and more lives as we continue to grow.
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