The Big Brothers Big Sister program began in 1904 as the first formalized mentoring program in the United States.

Every year, in addition to providing one-to-one youth mentoring services, BBBS helps hundreds of other nonprofit organizations implement new youth mentoring programs in every neighborhood.

The BBBS is currently focused on recruiting male mentors.

One of the problems the BBBS program is often faced with is thatfewer girls sign up for the program, yet a lot more female mentors step up to become big sisters.

“Right now we have anywhere up to 25 girls that need to be matched in comparison to a lot more boys that are signed up for the program. The tough thing is finding male mentors,” said John Dedo, director of marketing and special events.

Part of the imbalance is that most of the single parents who have children are mothers and they often feel comfortable with the relationship they have with their daughter. The challenge is relating with the boys.

“Sometimes we often discourage women mentors, because we have so many. We usually will just recommend them to other agencies,” Dedo said.

BBBS does have cross gender matches but only a big sister to a little brother. “There are currently six cross gender matches right now, and they all are going great,” Dedo said.

BBBS has orientations three times a month for mentors, including three to five orientations for parents and their children who are interested in signing up for the program. The average age for mentors is 28 to 38. They currently have mentors ranging from as young as 18 to as old as 70.

Matching a child up with a mentor takes anywhere from two months to two years, because of the many questions the parents often have, including what they are looking for in a match.

“If a parent and child are really picky, it could take a while,” Dedo said. He used the example of a deaf African-American child who was looking for the same characteristics in a mentor.

It took two years to find someone even close to matching the description. BBBS typically has a big contingency of mentors sign up November through December.

“People usually have New Year’s resolutions they want to fulfill or want to help out during the holidays,” Dedo said.