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By Justin Dionne

Big Brothers Big Sisters male mentor numbers up, but more still needed

Jan 22, 2019 | 4:30 AM

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Grande Prairie and Area is on the lookout for more male mentors.

Executive Director Corinne Patterson says the lack of male mentors is a challenge they face partly due to the work schedules of most men in Grande Prairie.

“I think that’s just the nature of the city and area we live in,” says Patterson. “With men here and their schedules, it’s just very hard to commit to spending time with a little brother or sister. When we do a big push for male mentors, we’re successful. We went from 40 kids on the wait list in the summer down to six.”

Patterson notes there has been a steady increase in the number of men volunteering since the summer of last year, but there’s still a number of boys in the program in need of a big brother.

“At the moment, I believe we have about 28 kids on our wait list, that’s boys and girls,” says Patterson. “Of that number, I’d say about 19 of them are boys.”

Patterson says as part of the challenge of acquiring male mentors, they get an increase in kids signing up to the program when they push for men to volunteer. She says currently there are more women volunteering.

“We tend to have a lot more female volunteers than males, so the wait list for little girls is much, much lower than the little guys.”

Patterson says the organization has been doing what it can to accommodate those who are willing to make the commitment.

“If a gentleman comes in and wants to mentor and volunteer with us, the first thing we’ll do is sit down with him and try to figure out his schedule. As long as he’s willing to make that commitment, maybe instead of one to two hours a week, it’s twice a month or maybe a Saturday afternoon twice a month. So, we’re certainly going to be a little bit flexible with that. There’s a lot of great people here and people that want to donate their time. We just have to be creative in how we do that.”

Patterson adds Big Brothers Big Sisters asks for a one-year minimum commitment, and close to 100 percent of the men who become mentors commit to the full year and go on to sign up again. 

by Justin Dionne