By Kellah Lavoie

Big Brothers Big Sisters prepares to move to Melfort

May 28, 2011 | 12:12 PM

Big Brothers Big Sisters is opening a new satellite office.

Members of the Prince Albert office, along with the executive director are heading to Melfort on June 6 to have an information night.

“We have received great support and interest from volunteers in Melfort to bring our programs to the community,” said Allyson Wall, event fundraising coordinator.

Social services contacted Big Brothers Big Sisters about a year ago with the idea to bring the group there, and in the past four months they have had 10 “bigs” tell them they wanted to volunteer in Melfort and ask how to start an organization there.

The easiest way is to make it a satellite of Prince Albert.

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“What we’re going do is talk to the community about funding our services in Melfort,” she said, adding social services could not fund them this fiscal year, so they will be looking at fundraisers and asking for corporate sponsors.

“(Social services) are going to look into it again next year – social services in Melfort back us 100 per cent,” she said.

Wall said they are hoping to start up the program in September. They plan to have the school mentoring program up and have it running for the start of the school year and are hoping to start the traditional program, where “bigs” and “littles” are paired up and spend three to five hours a week together, at the same time.

“I’m not sure if everyone exactly understands what Big Brothers Big Sisters provides, so once we give the information night and kind of get the ball rolling, people will understand the need to have a positive role model in (the children’s) life,” she said, explaining once they have the information meeting more people will likely sign up to volunteer.

“The children in our program, which we call them our littles, is youth kind of at risk, whether they come from a single parent family where the mom works say two jobs and doesn’t have time to go play baseball and golf, (it) just gives that extra confidence to the child that that child needs.”

She said many of the children involved are also raised by their grandparents and might need a friend to spend time with and get advice from.

The meeting will be June 6 at 5:30 p.m. It will include a barbeque at the Elks Hall. If anyone wants more information they can contact Big Brothers Big Sisters at 922-1299.

klavoie@panow.com