January is Mentoring Month, spearheaded by the Harvard Mentoring Project of the Harvard School of Public Health, MENTOR\/National Mentoring Partnership and the Corporation for National and Community Service. Big Brothers Big Sisters is a national partner. The 2009 theme is “Expand Your Universe: Mentor a Child.” The purpose is to encourage mentoring in America. Mentoring for Big Brothers Big Sisters means using a trusted, tested process of matching children in a safe and positive way that demonstrates proven outcomes. The children in our program are more likely to\u00a0succeed in school, solve problems without violent behavior, and avoid drugs and other illegal activities.\u00a0Big Brothers Big Sisters helps children change their perspective on what choices to make.\u00a0 With growing economic pressures on families and communities across San Diego, the need for all citizens to join the movement is urgent. Children are facing risks that lead to soaring dropout rates, violence and crime; what we achieve \u2014 how we improve the odds that children will succeed \u2014 is extremely relevant. With that in mind, Big Brothers Big Sisters, in recognition of National Mentoring Month, is introducing a way to recognize citizens who support the movement to help our children grow up in America, despite whether their role is mentoring or helping children beat the odds and break negative cycles in some other way. Big Brothers Big Sisters mentors, the “Bigs,” as we call them, are making a remarkable difference in our community. The Bigs in our network are young college students, middle-aged blue-collar workers, corporate managers and executives, retirees, athletes, artists \u2014 a diverse group of individuals who care about how our children are growing up in our community and throughout America. But this Mentoring Month, we want the nation to know that the movement works not only because of the Bigs but also because of communities such as ours that support them. You may not be able to be a mentor today but you may know someone who is a shining example of what it means to be a good mentor. We are asking Americans to nominate one or more outstanding individuals for Big Brothers Big Sisters\u2019 first Big Citizen of the Year Award. This honor recognizes that helping children make good choices takes family members, teachers, religious leaders, coaches, neighbors and so many others who want to help our children grow up in America. The Big Citizen of the Year Award is a way to illustrate that many people are making a positive difference in the lives of children. Nominating your favorite mentor is easy; Go to BigBrothersBigSisters.org and give a local unsung hero an opportunity to be recognized nationally. Invite your friends, family members and those on your e-mail lists to vote for him\/her. The winner will receive recognition at Big Brothers Big Sisters\u2019 National Conference in Miami and celebrate the honor at a private “Big Celebrity” dinner with professional athletes and actors, philanthropists and business executives who are also members of our movement. This month, we also extend a personal invitation for you to join the movement. There are other ways that you, your family and friends can also become part of the mentoring movement\u00a0if you are one of the people who think,\u00a0“I\u2019ve always thought about being a Big Brother or Big Sister, but I\u2019m way too busy.” You may be a person who can share a talent that\u00a0helps Big Brothers Big Sisters recruit, screen and match\u00a0hundreds of mentors needed each year for children who wait months for a special friend.\u00a0You may be someone who was a Little Brother or Little Sister who now can donate money or help with a Big Brothers Big Sisters project.\u00a0 You may work at a company that believes a\u00a0focus on\u00a0community involvement is as important as its profitability. \u00a0If you are passionate about children you know, consider spreading that passion to thousands of San Diego\u2019s children. A wonderful example of this is a recent donation made by Harry Singh, a local philanthropist, who gave $50,000 to support\u00a0Big Brothers Big Sisters Operation\u00a0Bigs \u2014 a\u00a0program that matches military volunteers with children of deployed parents at four elementary schools on base at Camp Pendleton. One story that demonstrates the value of Harry\u2019s gift is a conversation I had with\u00a0a mom whose daughter is in the Operation Bigs program. She\u00a0told me her daughter was acting out and wouldn\u2019t open up to her any- more. Her husband was deployed and they had just relocated to San Diego. Her daughter was feeling uprooted and afraid for her father.\u00a0 The Operation Bigs\u2019 Match Support Specialist matched her up with a high-ranking female Marine. Several weeks later, that same mother called to thank me for the work we do. She told me her relationship\u00a0between\u00a0her daughter and her Big Sister helped her daughter make a great turnaround\u00a0in her\u00a0behavior and her willingness to\u00a0open up about her\u00a0feelings. That mother, daughter and Big Sister\u2019s lives were changed because Harry Singh believed in the power of one-to-one mentoring and wanted to make sure all the children of our deployed troops had the same opportunity as this little girl and her family. Mentoring is a movement toward a solution for all the things we wish for our community\u2019s children: to be confident, safe, healthy and looking toward a wonderful future. \u2014 La Jollan Paul Palmer is the CEO and president of Big Brothers Big Sisters of San Diego County; PaulP@SDBigs.org; office: (858) 536-4900 x203; www.SDBigs.org.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
January is Mentoring Month, spearheaded by the Harvard Mentoring Project of the Harvard School of Public Health, MENTOR\/National Mentoring Partnership and the Corporation for National and Community Service. Big Brothers Big Sisters is a national partner. The 2009 theme is “Expand Your Universe: Mentor a Child.” The purpose is to encourage mentoring in America. Mentoring […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11560","_seopress_titles_title":"Mentoring is a movement with a role for everyone","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11560,11593,11552],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-300284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-la-jolla-village-news","category-no-images","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300284\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}