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HE PROGRAM does just that. It isn’t a place where
kids come after school, but rather a means to care
for children by partnering them with trustworthy,
positive role models like Janice and Billy Hanna,
who have been involved with Big Buddy for more
than two years.
They love taking their little buddies out on the boat and teaching
them about fishing. Layla Simmons, Janice’s little buddy, has even
completed an eight-hour course to earn her boating license. She had
never been on the water before Big Buddy, but now she loves chal-lenging
the Hannas to fishing competitions. Janice says she has seen
Layla grow from being an insecure middle school student to a confi-dent
preteen who is doing well in school.
For Amaro, Big Buddy is an opportunity to meet people from differ-ent
backgrounds and feel at ease in new places. She and her younger
sister, Aaliyah, recently went to the North Carolina State Fair with Folk
and rode a ride that could only be described as “a sideways helicopter
blade attached to spinning cages,” she says.
Anthony says the Big Buddy program makes a difference in two
main ways: it cares for those affected by societal problems like the
opioid epidemic, prostitution, and gang involvement; and works to
prevent those problems from passing on to the next generation by
engaging young people in positive ways. Some have parents that are
addicts, incarcerated, and prostitutes. Big Buddy gives them an outlet
away from tumultuous home lives.
“These children just need to be engaged and know that the commu-nity
cares for them,” Anthony says. “If we intervene in the child’s life at a
young age, we can give them the love and communication skills to find
what they are looking for without having to turn to alternative sources
like gangs and comfort themselves with extra things.”
Big buddies try to show little buddies more than what they often
see immediately around them.
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WBM december 2017
Volunteers from the Marine Corps spent
time with children in the Big Buddy
program during National Make a Difference
Day on October 28 at Fort Fisher. Above:
Staff Sgt. Michael Perry sack races with
Ben. Far left: Janice Hanna gives Destiny a
thumbs up for catching a red drum at the
National Make a Difference Day event. To
Destiny’s right is Eddie Hardgrove, long-time
Cape Fear Volunteer Center volunteer
and Michael, little buddy to Billy Hanna.
Left: Landon builds sand castles with Chris
Stoner and Rocco Urso.
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