ST. MARYS — Big Brothers Big Sisters of Mercer, Auglaize & Van Wert Counties will be able to continue to offer school based mentoring to elementary students in Auglaize County through its School Buddies program, thanks to a grant from Vectren Energy Delivery of Ohio. Vectren Energy, presented a foundation check for $1,000 to Abby Balster, executive director of the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization.\u00a0The Vectren Foundation grant will support the School Buddies programs in Auglaize County that matches junior and senior high school students with elementary students for mentoring in an after-school setting.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe after school programs that we conduct have been successful,\u201d Balster said. \u201cResearch has proven that mentoring programs, such as ours, have positive measurable results and are viewed favorably by our local schools and community. And it\u2019s because of generous grants from corporate sponsors, such as Vectren, that we are able to impact hundreds of children\u2019s lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
National studies indicate that children and youth who meet regularly with their Big Brother or Big Sister mentors are 52 percent less likely to skip school, 46 percent less likely to begin using illegal drugs, and 27 percent less likely to begin using alcohol.<\/p>\n
There are 45 mentoring relationships between at-risk children and high school students at Minster Middle School, Wapakoneta Elementary, and St. Marys West Elementary.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are numerous children on our waiting list to be matched with mentors,\u201d Balster said. \u201cTogether, financial donations and volunteer mentors make our mentoring programs successful. I\u2019m hopeful other companies and individuals can step forward to help these at-risk youth. The need for mentors for all of our mentoring programs continues to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n
A high school <\/em>mentor agrees to meet with his\/her mentee 1\u00bd hours each week in the student\u2019s respective school. During their time together, the mentor is encouraged to engage in a variety of activities with his\/her \u201clittle\u201d brother or sister, including recreation, educational games, homework assistance and simply talking about “what’s happening.\u201d Furthermore, the School Buddies share the same school holidays and summer vacations as their little brother or sister.<\/p>\n \u201cThe process to become a mentor for any of the mentoring programs is simple,\u201d Balster said. \u201cA brief application, background and reference checks and an interview with staff to gauge match preferences are conducted to get the mentoring experience underway.\u201d<\/p>\n Big Brothers Big Sisters strives to match mentors and children together who have similar likes and dislikes and offers support and advice from case workers to facilitate ideal relationships\/matches. Dollars will go toward the case management staff charged with overseeing the match throughout the year to ensure a positive, safe relationship. In fact, the national annual average to maintain a mentor-to-youth match is $750 to $1,000.<\/p>\n To learn more about School Buddies or other programs offered by BBBS (One-on-One Program, Supper Club with Marsh Foundation or AmachiOhio — Mentoring Children of Prisoners Program), and to begin the process of becoming a mentor, call 419.394.2290.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ST. MARYS — Big Brothers Big Sisters of Mercer, Auglaize & Van Wert Counties will be able to continue to offer school based mentoring to elementary students in Auglaize County through its School Buddies program, thanks to a grant from Vectren Energy Delivery of Ohio. Vectren Energy, presented a foundation check for $1,000 to Abby […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-youth"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-24 02:51:02","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7080\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}