KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Kansas City conducts an annual competition called March Match-ness to raise awareness of the need for more mentors in the city.
Currently, almost 1,500 children have been matched in the Kansas City metro area. A "match" is when an adult mentor also know as a "big" is paired with a "little."
With the country already in the competitive spirit thanks to NCAA March Madness, Big Brothers Big Sisters conduct the annual event among "bigs" to try and recruit new mentors.
"We just wanted to create something to bring out the competition in people and help out BBBS," said Scott Cruce, who serves as the organization's director of volunteer recruitment. "Our greatest need is we need more bigs. We have a great community of 1,500 matches, but we still have more than 300 children on our waiting list that need a big brother, big sister or big couple."
Cruce said studies show children with mentors have a better chance at graduating high school and staying out of trouble with the law and in school.
"We have been growing as an organization over the last 15 years" he said. "We have tripled in size in the number of children that we serve and, unfortunately, our waiting list still has a lot of kids on it. It is like the more successful we are in creating matches and doing great things, they tell their friends, they tell their parents and schools to get more kids involved. The more matches we make, the more kids want to be in our program."
While the March Match-ness competition ends this weekend, the need for mentors doesn't end on April 1.
"We need bigs throughout the year and coming years," Cruce said. "We are always going to have a need for more big brothers and big sisters."
Anyone interested in joining should visit the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater KC website.
