“We do a lot of the cool things that I enjoyed doing when I was 14 years old. We go hiking, we go to movies, we go to the arcade and play games, drive around on the go-karts – it’s been great.

Big Brothers Big Sisters doesn’t try to tell me what I should do with my little brother, or what kind of things we should be focusing on, it’s just two guys having a good time.”

             — Big Brother Brandon

Community Based Mentoring

Community-based mentoring is our traditional program, and the most flexible. One adult and one child, carefully screened and matched, plan activities together several times a month on their own schedules. We don’t tell them what to do or when, we just ask that they do it together. While throwing a ball, reading a book, or just picking up the laundry, Bigs and Littles develop a special relationship with lasting impact.

Community-based mentoring can happen wherever the adult and child are. We have hundreds of matches in every county – and hundreds of boys on our waiting list. We need male volunteers for these children. Right now girls who want a Big Sister can be matched quickly.

School-Based Mentoring

School-based mentoring programs support elementary and middle school children by sending adult and high school volunteers to meet with them at their schools. Caring adults agree to spend 1-2 hours a week after school with a Little Brother or Little Sister they are carefully matched with. This is not a tutoring program: Bigs and Littles can eat lunch together, read in the library, play on the playground, or just talk. They meet once a week at an assigned time during the school year and once a month during the summer.

Right now we have school-based programs in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties. There are lots of little girls enrolling who need Big Sisters – we encourage women who want to be Big Sisters to consider School-based mentoring. And, as always, we need men that little boys can look up to.

Site-Based Mentoring

Site-based mentoring programs pair adults and children at community centers like Boys and Girls Clubs and YMCAs, where there are lots of structured activities for Bigs and Littles to do together: computers, athletics, reading and more.

As with all our programs, Bigs are asked to meet regularly with their Littles, to be dependable, and to care. That is the heart of the Big Brothers Big Sisters mentoring relationship.

Right now we have site-based programs in San Francisco and Richmond.