January is National Mentoring Month

 

January is National Mentoring Month, a month to reflect on the great work of volunteers, and to promote youth mentoring. The annual event has occurred since January 2002 and was originally spearheaded through the Harvard School of Public Health and MENTOR. Now in its seventh full year, President George W. Bush has officially proclaimed January as National Mentoring Month.

 

Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters is proud to recognize its volunteers who truly have enriched the lives of children, their families and adults with disabilities by acting as a caring adult friend. They play basketball, go to the movies, and eat ice cream. They paint pottery, go bowling, and cheer on the Red Sox. Most importantly, they smile, they listen and they care. Our agency could not be entering its 90^th year of servicing the Jewish community without the compassion, enthusiasm and friendship that our volunteers provide. We are forever grateful.

After 89 Years, JBBBS Joins the Blogosphere!

 

Welcome to our first blog, entry after 89 years of doing business.

Times have changed:  The first public message of Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters was issued in a little box-shaped editorial in the pages of the Bnai Brith Messenger, and a column in the Jewish Advocate.  Our agency was in its gestation period in 1918, a year that began with the euphoria of a Red Sox World Series victory, in a Boston that would not see another one until four years ago.  The next year, the year of our official founding, brought the aftermath of World War I, a massive and deadly flu pandemic, and a year of upheaval around the world. 

The 1918 World Champion Boston Red Sox

Then as now, the idea of Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters was a simple one:  there were plenty of kids in the Greater Boston area who needed some attention; who needed a hand; who needed some guidance.  There were immigrant kids; boys whose fathers had run off; and children whose families had suffered loss, illness, poverty and emotional turmoil.   The agency was started by people who had something; and who simply wanted to give a little of it back to their community.

The Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters are not so different today; and neither are conditions either in the Jewish or the larger community. Regardless of how well our community does – and today we work with Jewish and non-Jewish children –  there are always those of us who exist at the margins of our shared communal life;  and are perhaps too embarrassed  or ashamed or too needy to let that need be seen by our regular communal institutions.

So the way this message is reaching you is wildly different, the message itself is the same:  It’s not only a great thing, it’s a fun thing to be a Jewish Big Brother or Big Sister;  and if you’re qualified, we’ll help you make your experience as rewarding -maybe even more rewarding -for you as it is for your ‘little.’

We hope to use this blog as a new way of communicating with you. Many of you are long time friends of the agency, as others may have stumbled upon us. Either way, we hope that you will check back often to hear more about what is new with the agency, read tips for our “Bigs” and parents and share in the fun that goes on within Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters.

We’ll be back in touch with you soon – in the meantime, we’d love to hear suggestions from you about what you’d be interested in learning about.

All the best for the holiday season -

Chag Chanukah Sameach

Harv