*Editor’s note: Names have been changed in the story to protect the identity of minors.
If you have an (annoying) younger or older sibling, it’s easy to take that bond for granted.
But for a number of kids in the Sea to Sky, their older mentors are Big Brothers and Big Sisters – adults who volunteer to provide mentorship and friendship to youth in need through Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Canada.
“You’re not a disciplinarian, you’re a mentor, you’re just there to offer some support,” says Paul Bride, a Big Brother volunteer in Squamish.
Bride went to school to become a counsellor and worked with street kids in Ottawa. His career went in a different direction – he’s now an international expedition photographer – but for the past seven years, he’s been hanging out and playing soccer with his Little when he’s home in Squamish.
Big Brothers Big Sisters pairs kids in communities across Canada with adults in the community to help them build their confidence and have a consistent mentor. Supportive staff at the organization help facilitate training for “bigs” and match them with a “little” who could use their help.
For Bride, the result has been a unique friendship with his 14-year-old “little brother” Ethan*, and some unexpected learning opportunities.
“My wife and I don’t have kids, so it’s kind of nice to hang out, and you learn about what’s cool and what’s not,” he laughs. “It’ll be things I’ve never heard of before. It’s pretty funny.”
“You get to learn about yourself sometimes, and a lot of kids don’t have the same opportunities I had. It’s nice to help them out. It is a good program and it’s very simple.”
Bride couldn’t recall having a real heart-to-heart with Ethan about what their friendship means, but a few years ago he got a card for Father’s Day that said “Pawl, thank you for being my big brother” with a drawing of the two playing soccer under a mountain.
The picture still hangs on his fridge.
“It’s just pretty cool that he thought enough to make that for me, and I think it meant a lot to him as well,” said Bride. “If he ends up a couple years down the road thinking, ‘That was a good experience, Paul was a nice guy,’ well, how awesome is that?”
While Bride meets with Ethan once a week when he’s home on assignments,
in-school mentor Doug Hackett spends an hour each week in a Squamish elementary school meeting with a student in the program.
Or as he jokingly describes it – “I can get an hour off work every week and I play monopoly or lego. It’s just wonderful.”
Hackett has been seeing his current student for four years, and over the weeks together they’ve built models, built puzzles and built a friendship.
Hackett decided to volunteer with the organization after a friend told him they had difficulty finding male volunteers in Squamish.
Across Canada, the current waitlist for Big Brothers Big Sisters is over 4,000, according to the organization.
“One you get involved, well, it’s hard to do it for a year and then stop. Once you’re involved, you’re having a good time and seeing the two of you are kind of building a relationship together, it just carries on,” said Hackett.
“You’re not there to teach, you’re not there to be a psychologist. You’re there to be a friend,” he said. “If they want to talk, then you are an older friend who might have some experience to help them with something. If they just want to play lego, you just play lego.”
