Big Brothers Big Sisters to go it alone

CELINA - Leaders of a local organization with nearly 30 years of experience helping area young people have decided to change its name but not its purpose.

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Mercer, Auglaize and Van Wert Counties will become M.A.V. Youth Mentoring on Dec. 1 and is disaffiliating with the national BBBS organization.

The change stems from the national organization's desire to help more youth. As a smaller agency, the local group would have sent almost all the money it raised out of the area, said Molly Hay, the local organization's executive director.

"National Big Brothers Big Sisters is going through a big change themselves. In order for them to make change, they have to increase staff and they have to increase costs. In order for that to happen, they are going to be charging all the agencies more money to be associated with them," she said. "So the payment from us was going to increase greatly. In return, we don't receive any financial support from the national office. It will all go to Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland."

Hay said the decision to disaffiliate with the national organization was not an easy one.

"We did a lot of research. We reached out to our big corporate sponsors, the people involved, trying to get feedback on what would they think about us possibly disassociating, so when it came down to it, there were just a lot more benefits and pluses to disaffiliate than to stay," she said.

Big Brothers Big Sisters has traditionally matched children who have little positive role modeling in their lives with volunteers who mentor the children and provide friendship. Locally, the organization conducts lunch clubs in most elementary schools in the area; an afterschool program in Celina, Van Wert, St. Marys and St. Henry, which matches elementary students with area high school students; and the supper club program, which offers a one-on-one relationship for students living at the Marsh Foundation in Van Wert, a residential treatment facility for high-risk students.

Hay emphasized that the change in name will not mean a change in services.

"Once we disaffiliate, all those programs will stay the same. We will continue to serve the area that we serve. We will continue to run the same programs that we have. The only thing that's going to change is our name and our logo," she said.

The three major fundraising activities will carry on with new names, she added.

"We'll have to change the names, but we will still have a bowling event, a golf event and a dancing event," she said. "The good news now is that all that money raised will stay here locally."

The move away from the national organization is not unique for the smaller agencies across the country. Hay said the national organization even drew up disaffiliation packages to give local officials wanting to sever ties some guidance on what can and cannot be done.

Names, logos, programs terminology and fundraisers will have new names to avoid overlap with the national organization, but overall Hay said that keeping the dues local will save the agency about $14,000 annually. She hopes the attention from the renaming will be good for the local agency.

"Overall, I think it will bring some more awareness to what we do," she said. "I think that hopefully we will get more financial support from businesses, whether they financially support us or support the idea that their employees can become mentors. I hope that we can reach out and serve more of our youth because more and more have situations where they need a positive role model."

Hay and the M.A.V. Youth Mentoring board of directors invite the public to the agency's headquarters at 1005 N. Main St., Celina, from 4-6 p.m. Dec. 14 for a ribbon-cutting celebration.

"I really think it's in the best interest of our agency in this community, in the three counties that we serve that we make this change," Hay said.