Bible. Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome,
welcome. It's time now for a community connection right here on K one,
the one you trust. Charlene Doo is with us and bowl me over.
I mean, yeah, we're bowling for kids. Say that's what we're
doing. That's what we're doing. How are you doing, young lady.
I'm doing great. It's nice to see a little warmer temperatures. It is.
The rain is welcome. Oh it's I was told that if you get
rain in January around here, it's like stealing. So I didn't see nothing.
There you go. We need to get some bowlers already to get going
here for a ball for kids sake, don't we both? Kid good?
Both for kid's sake. Is is in full swing and we want to take
a minute to thank all of our sponsors. We're over goal on sponsors,
so that is awesome. We still have room for for some new sponsors if
you're interested. Our presenting sponsor again is DSR and our kingpin sponsors this year
are Chronical Phillips and Cutterfield Financial. Nice. So we've got fifty eight teams
registered and our goal is ninety eight, so we're almost we're halfway there,
and our early Bird Team Captain's winner team captains that had registered by January nineteenth,
we're in a drawing for one hundred dollars visa card. And the winner
of the early Bird Team Captains drawing is Bobby Bailey from a Trudy Way to
Go. Bobby Bailey has been a longtime supporter of both for kid's sake.
So our new incentive is for teams. So if all six members of the
team have signed up by January thirty first and made a twenty five dollars contribution
to their own personal pledgsheet, then they're in a drawing. All the team
members are in a drawing for one hundred dollars visa card. And so we
encourage everybody to get your team fully registered by January thirty first. You can
always register after that, but you know, there's no one hundred dollars visa
card on the table, might as well might as well get it done as
we get in there with the carrot. Yeah, so our goal is one
hundred and fifty five to five two thousand this year, and so we're really
optimistic that we're going to do that. And I just encourage everybody. If
you're if you're interested in sponsoring, there's room for new sponsors. If you
want to do a hosted team where the company pays the nine hundred dollars to
sponsor the team and then they pick six people to come and bowl, we
have that opportunity. If you have some other grand idea, call me and
we'll see if we can make it work. All right, you open to
suggestion. Oh we like to be resourceful. Awesome. Well, you know
one resource that we need with big brothers, with big sisters is mentors.
We always need mentors. The ones we have are great, but we could
use a few more. Yes, we always need mentors. We have thirty
nine children on the waiting list. We had a surge of referrals in the
fall, and seventeen of those are girls and the rest are boys. So
our target for mentors is men or couples that can be matched with a boy.
And then we always need women. So there are children waiting for you.
You know, it's really about just taking a little bit of time sharing
your life experience with a child. It's not complicated if you just think about
what am I doing today, what am I going to be doing on Saturday
that I could involve a child in and then share that time with the You'll
change both of your lives. That sounds pretty dark cool. And all you
have to do is give you a call and you answer the phone by the
way I do answer the phone. You do. It's a welcome thing.
And also go to the website. It'll tell you a little bit more into
detail about what right all about. The website is big Oklahoma dot org.
My phone number is nine one eight two one three four five two four,
and we'd be happy to talk with you answer any questions. If you have
a club, an organization, a business that you would like me to come
and do a presentation, and be happy to do that as well. We've
done virtual things we can do in person. So we just need to get
more people in the community to be aware of what the need is and how
easy it is really to be a friend to a child that really helps them
change their life and achieve their potential. So many lives have been turned around.
I've seen this firsthand from people who participated. My uncle was a big
He was a bone s urgent and he says guys were going on a canoe
trip and he says We've got a few other guys come along with us.
I said, oh, wow, more kids. He said, yeah,
more kids, and all these bigs it took their littles and he didn't have
kids yet. My cousins weren't around yet. So he took his little plus
us and we did a little canoeing in Big Old River in Ohio. And
I was asking these kids, and he said, well, what's this big
and little business all about? It says, don't really understand it, but
it's pretty cool we get to do fun stuff like this. I said,
all right. But as it turned out, you know, many of them
had lifelong relationships with their bigs. As it turned out, we have many.
Because I've been here for ever, the I run into people who still
have really still have connections to their to the little they were matched with years
and years ago. You know. Actually, Big Brothers Big Sisters has served
Washington County forty years in May. Goodness, say that's a big deal.
Yes, imagine it'll be a big old celebration about that. I'll detall it.
At least we should at least get a cookie year something. Im sure
they will. But you partnered up with another a great mentoring program as well
with the Young Scholars of Bartlefield. Right when Young Scholars started in two thousand
and six, we met with them and said, you know, we're like,
we can bring your vision and your generosity because at that time they were
made had made the late very Low and Karen Low had made a significant contribution
to OSU for scholarships for children of the working for that's basically the target.
And and because mentoring is what we do, and mentoring is a component of
their programs, so we partner together and Big Brothers Big Sisters provides the mentoring
component of the Young Scholars program. Which Young Scholars focus is on academic achievement
and preparing youth for that college education, helping them secure the find the scholarships
to be able to go to college. And for many of those children they
will be first generation, they'll be the first in their families to attend college.
And then they support them through that college experience. So Young Scholars does
quarterly community service projects, they track academic achievement very closely. And the really
nice part about it is that the partnership has evolved where youth that are in
the Big Brother Big Sister program already that meet the criteria for the ak Demo
criteria in terms of grade point and income level. Four young Scholars have been
accepted into the Young Scholars now, being that partnership is truly working to help
a child that was already in our program had had a mentor be able to
achieve that academic the college scholarship as well. And so it's really wonderful to
see these kids who realize their dreams, and that's what we're working together to
do. In fact, i was Briannazinsky was the director, was supposed to
be with me today. I've missed her already. She's such a nice gal.
But she called me at seven thirty and has succumbed to the virus that's
running around as many of us somehow in this month. Tells me she's got
little ones right, yes, yes, kids. And in fact, we
were having a conversation yesterday and her kids had been sick, and I'm like,
are you sure you're not going to take No, I'm fine, And
I'm like, yeah, well story, yeah, Well I'm I'm sorry you're
sick, but I'm glad it's today and not tomorrow. So that radio station
is a pretty small space. Oh, it is quite so the Young Scholars
and Big Brothers Sisters partnership is has been beneficial in many many ways. So
Young Scholars brought in fourteen new students this Yes, they accepted fourteen new students
into their program and there's still nine of them that need mentors. So anybody
who's listening that particularly has a heart for education and the academic side, that's
an excellent program to get into. I mean, we still do all the
screening, we do, the match selection, we do all the match support
Big Brothers Sisters does, but Young Scholars helps to recruit their mentors, and
so anybody that's really interested in helping with a youth with academic achievement, that's
a good fit for them as well. We have kids waiting that range an
age from six to sixteen and all different interests. So it really is life
changing, and I would encourage people to just think about how are you spending
your time and do you have some time to share. One thing that it
hits me with this is that if you're a child, you only know what
you're being around, you only know your environment. And with Big Brother Big
Sister, this gives you the big opportunity to give a child maybe a different
perspective on how life is beyond that environment and maybe in different environments and maybe
just maybe you could catch that dream that the kids might have things. Well,
we've gone from the impossible to hey, I think this might work.
You know, that's so true. We only know what we know, and
then when we know more, we can dream more, right, and and
somethings, that's the simple things there are. There are kids who have never
been out of the city. There that have never been to a production at
the community center, who never baked cookies or made bread, you know,
or even had the resources to even think about or yeah, to have the
resources to even think about doing that. And so it's really about sharing life
experiences and helping kids to see that things. Sometimes when we ask kids when
we're doing enrollment interviews what they want to do or what do they like to
do, it's like they don't really know sometimes because they have not had the
opportunity to do lots of different things. So the boy, you get a
a nice exposure to the wide variety menu of life once you get the chance
to see it with perhaps a different perspective, for a different lens. Yeah,
it's it truly is a life changing, and most of our volunteers will
say I came in to help a child. I didn't realize how much I
was going to gain out of that, out of that experience. We've had
many of them sitting right there beside you will who say the same thing and
they're like a dog gone at a hidden benefit for me. Wow, I
didn't see that coming. Well. Yeah, and we've got a couple of
kids who have been on the waiting list. I think there's six of them
have been on a waiting list for longer than a year, and that's a
long time in a life. So we're really focused on those kids. But
our top priority always is child safety and making the best match indeed, you
know, like we would Daniel, who is our program specialist, I did
a match selection yesterday and there were two youth who matched with who were good
choices based on you know, personality and interest for this one volunteer. But
one of those children is at a really pivotal point in his life where if
there isn't an intervention, he it's he may not end up in a positive
place. And the other one is doing okay, but he's been waiting longer,
you know, so if you look at, well, the waiting longer
ways, but but the but the one who's at the crossroads is the one
who really needs this big and he needs him now, not six months from
now, not a year from now, but he needs them now because of
the struggles that he's having and academically and just making life choices. And so
that's the one we chose. You know, they both match on interest,
and they'll both they both be good matches. But the one who's going to
be right, you know, because it's like I'm like, okay, so
which one you know, Like, if you look at length of time waiting,
it's this one. But if you look at the crossroads that which one
is going to have the most immediate impact. It's this one because that child
really does need somebody who can say, hey, let's think about some of
the decisions that we're making and make better ones. And a lot of times
kids only need somebody in their corner that they feel like is is their champion
and is listening to them and is showing them, you know, because sometimes
they get caught up in all that struggle within their family and then they don't
see the forest for the trees. No, they're just trying to manage the
Yeah, I understand that we're speaking with Charlie Due and she's with big Brothers,
Big sisters, and once again we have both for kid's sake. Where
can people find out more about both for kids? Say? The website is
is think about Both for Kids Sake SOS b F k S Bartlesville dot org
or call our office. If you go out to Big Oklahoma dot org and
click on events, you'll see the graphic out there for Bartlesville. Both for
kid's sake, very easy to find. Let's make good use of it,
folks. Let's get to uh, let's get to one hundred with our team.
I'll be happy with eighty eight, but one hundred be great. Got
a dream, big sister, And if you're listening and you're a small business
owner or you have a group of uh, you know, you're you're like,
yeah, i'd really like to do that, but you know, and
I would just like to host the team and then invite six people to come
out and bowl. We have a few of those teams and they work well
for those companies. They do. Yeah, and so it raises the money.
It provides an opportunity for work group or to get together and just do
some team building. Yeah, well, there you go, Charlene. I
want to thank you very much for being with us and sharing time with us
today. Thank you Tom for the opportunity. Alrighty folks, you've been listening
and watching to community connection