Sonoma County nonprofit seeks Big Brothers, Big Sisters

Seven-year-old Paloma Bala of Santa Rosa gets less attention than her parents would like.

She has two special-needs brothers who demand much of her parents’ time when her mom, a full-time student in nursing school, and her dad, who works, get home.

So a little more than a year ago, her mom, Boualay Bala, decided to seek out a mentor for her daughter through the Big Brothers Big Sisters of the North Bay program.

“We thought it would be a nice way to have someone else involved in her life, to give her the attention she needs as well,” she said.

The nonprofit organization operates under the umbrella of the national Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, which calls itself the country’s largest donor- and volunteer-supported mentoring network. It serves 500 children annually across four North Bay counties, carefully matching kids ages 6 to 16 with a mentor and then monitoring the relationship over the months and years.

Through their efforts, Bala’s daughter was eventually paired with a “big sister” - Julie Edson of Rohnert Park. In the year since then, Bala has seen her daughter grow more confident, sociable and understanding of her brothers.

“She realizes having someone take time out of their day to spend with her is something to emulate,” Bala said.

Paloma Bala was paired with her mentor after just a few months, but many other Sonoma County youths face much longer waits, said officials at the organization, who are actively seeking new mentors - especially men - to pair with the children on their wait list.

The average wait time for children seeking a Big Brother or Big Sister in Sonoma County is more than 900 days, said Interim Executive Director Lauren Grayman. The roughly 21/2 year average wait is mainly due to the agency’s struggle to find matches for the teenage boys on the list, she said.

“We’re always on the lookout for new mentors, especially men,” she said. “It’s a constant struggle.”

Older boys are much harder to match both because mentors tend to want to be paired with younger children and because about half as many men than women volunteer, she said.

“It makes for a very sad story for our kids,” she said. “If we could get some of these older boys matched it would be amazing.”

Across the agency, 80 percent of the youth waiting to be matched are boys.

Following a rush of new matches made this fall, the wait list in Sonoma County is down to 12, but Grayman said the agency is always getting new applicants. There are currently 71 mentor-mentee pairs in Sonoma County.

Any child can apply for a mentorship, though most in the program are considered at-risk in one way or another. A little more than 90 percent of mentees, who the agency refers to as “littles,” face one of the following challenges: They come from a single-parent household, a parent is incarcerated, their family is low-income, a parent is in the military, or they live in a foster home.

Grayman says mentorships help these youths in a number of ways. She pointed to statistics from her organization that indicate youths paired with a mentor for one year show a 75 percent decrease in drug and alcohol use and a 42 percent increase in academic performance. Mentees also have four times fewer teen pregnancies than their peers and four times fewer arrests, according to the organization.

The agency asks mentors to commit to meeting with their little brother or sister two to four times a month for at least a year. Anyone over age 18 who is out of high school can volunteer to be a Big Brother or Big Sister. Age, religion and ethnicity don’t matter, Grayman said, noting that one Big Brother just turned 80. Mentors must pass an extensive application process that includes an interview with a clinically trained counselor, a series of background checks, and a mentor training.

While 53 percent of youths they serve are Latino and 20 percent African-American, more than 70 percent of mentors are white.

Paloma Bala’s mentor Julie Edson is 58. The 50-year age difference doesn’t stop the two from roller-blading together and doing a range of other outdoor activities both enjoy, Edson said. Edson first became a Big Sister more than 30 years ago at age 25. Her mentee was 14, making the two as close in age as some sisters.

Edson had always wanted a sister, which is part of why she got involved. She also wanted to help children overcome some of the same childhood issues she’d struggled with, such as self esteem. The only girl in her parents’ family, she felt intense pressure to be someone she was not while growing up. It took her years to develop self-confidence, she said.

“They kind of stomped the self-esteem right out of me,” said the retired county probation officer.

More than three decades years later, she is still close with her first mentee, who her two sons know as “Aunt Caycee.” Her son, Forrest Edson, was inspired by her involvement to become a mentor himself in 2013.

“I was glad to see I could be a male in a program that definitely needs a lot of male influence,” he said.

Julie Edson said she thinks she’s helped her mentees in many ways, including showing them how to be more assertive. She’s benefited greatly from the relationships, too.

“I think it’s been very cathartic for me to give these girls the things I wish I had at that age,” she said. “It’s really helped me.”

Staff Writer Jamie Hansen blogs about education at extracredit.blogs.pressdemocrat.com. You can reach her at 521-5205 or jamie.hansen@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jamiehansen.