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June 13, 2002
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Karen Brown |
ELLSWORTH—Karen Brown, director of Big Brothers Big
Sisters of Hancock and Washington Counties, has a big job
and a small space in which to do it.
In Brown’s office, part of Downeast Health Services on
Christian Ridge Road, fliers, manuals, and papers in the
process of being written, cover desks or tabletops. Those
papers represent the 200 children in the Hancock and
Washington county area served by Big Brothers Big Sisters,
Brown says.
Brown’s office takes charge of a 95-year-old institution
that is described as “America’s pre-eminent national
youth-servicing organization.” Big Brothers Big Sisters
provides volunteer mentors to children ages 7 to 14 who
need adult support and friendship. The program primarily
serves children from one-parent households in Hancock
County and in the Machias area of Washington County,
providing one-to-one relationships.
Volunteers who spend time with children do so in schools
and the community and each volunteer commits to spending
at least one school year meeting with children each week
or maybe only on alternate weeks, so the younger brother
or sister can discuss issues of importance.
Each pair is supervised by the program staff and
volunteers are offered regular training and recreational
events. Although the relationship between adult and child
costs nothing, Big Brothers Big Sisters has been proven to
help keep young people off drugs and to improve their
relationships and attitudes.
Literature provided by Big Brothers Big Sisters notes that
children in the program, compared with others in the
community, are 46-percent less likely to start using
drugs; 52-percent less likely to skip school; 27-percent
less likely to start drinking; and 33-percent less likely
to assault someone.
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