Big Brothers Big Sisters of Puget Sound partners with actively involved community members to match caring adults with children, both of whom benefit from our one-to-one mentoring programs.

Description:
Recent research has demonstrated that children who are wanted, supported, encouraged, guided and feel secure and positive are far more likely to enter adulthood without experiencing drug use, delinquency or school failure. The sad truth is that many children are not receiving the nurturing they need.

Each year in Washington State, approximately 25,000 children are born to unmarried parents or experience the divorce of their parents. Unfortunately, many times they lose contact altogether with one of those parents.
Children from single-parent homes are much more likely to be poor, drop out of school, or end up in foster care or juvenile detention. Boys from single-parent homes are much more likely to become incarcerated, unemployed and uninvolved with their own children when they become fathers.
Fewer than one in four students in Washington State say they have adult role models to help guide them through the pressures of growing up, according to the Survey of Adolescent Health Behaviors.

History:
Big Brothers Big Sisters was founded nationally over 100 years ago and has been providing mentoring programs in the Puget Sound region for over 50 years. Big Brothers Big Sisters of Puget Sound is the largest mentoring agency in the state of Washington and has plans to serve over 5,000 matches by 2010.

Contact people:

Mikah Smith, Volunteer Manager, (phone), (email) Doug Baxter, Program Coordinator, (phone), (email) Agency Information, General, (phone), (email)

Address:

2107 S 12th St Tacoma, WA 98405 (See a map)