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John Watson blocks for Jeremiah as he runs with the ball during a football game with Shawn Robinson, back left, and Nathaniel, far right.
Shawn and Jeremiah are a matched pair in the Big Buddy program.
Big Buddy is a youth mentoring program for children who have
had some involvement with the juvenile justice system, excessive
in-school and out-of-school suspensions, poor academic perfor-mance,
or lack a positive role model. Each child, ages 5-18 from
New Hanover, Brunswick and Pender counties, gets an individual
mentor, and each pair of buddies commits to spending at least
eight hours a month together.
Children and volunteer mentors are matched based on common
interests and compatibility through an extensive application sys-tem.
They are free to decide how they will spend their time.
Folk and Amaro met at a meet-and-greet for unmatched big and lit-tle
buddies. They started talking and recognized an instant connection.
“I fully expected that I would be matched with a younger girl, but
when I met Nissa, I knew that we were meant to be together,” Folk says.
They spend time going to the beach, doing arts and crafts, and
hanging out at Folk’s house. Folk and her husband are helping
Amaro learn how to drive.
“I’ll go do what’s happening in her life, or if there’s something hap-pening
in my life that she’s interested in, then we’ll do it,” Folk says.
“She’s such a talented person and she has so many possibilities within
her. I just want to encourage her to do whatever she wants to do.”
The Big Buddy program has been run by the Cape Fear Volunteer
Center since the spring of 2006 after Family Services of the Lower
Cape Fear announced plans to drop the 40-year-old program. Annie
Anthony, the founder and director of the Cape Fear Volunteer
Center, saw a need and stepped in to fill it.
“There’s no way I or our board of directors was going to allow those
children to lose their mentors,” Anthony says.
Anthony loves connecting people in need with people who want
to help, often by working with other organizations.
“Our main reason for existing is to match agencies and individu-als
with service opportunities in southeastern North Carolina,”
Anthony says. “We just want people to find a way to express their
passion without having to recreate another nonprofit. We don’t
need 1 million nonprofits. We just have to channel the energy of the
individuals who are interested.”
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