Big Brothers Big Sisters of Erie CountyBe-A-Friend Program, Inc.Big

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Providing children facing adversity with strong & enduring, professionally supported mentoring relationships.

Special EditionAnnual Report

Founded 1971Robert F. Moss

Board of Directors Brian Murphy - Lawley Benefits Group

Alan S. Korman - Columbus McKinnon

Gerald Pullano - Thruway Fasteners Inc.

Christine Farrow Ph.D. - Niagara Frontier Transit Authority

David Hore - PCB Group, Inc.

Victor Anastasia - L&M Financial Services

Allen Brown - General Mills Michael Conroy - M&T Insurance

Tammy Hill - Philanthropist

J. Kincaid - Lougen, Valenti, Bookbinder & Weintraub

Joseph Marusak - Counsel to Kloss, Stenger & LoTempio

De Moss - Community Leader

Kevin Paris - Forbes Capretto Custom Homes

Gust Pullman - Barclay Damon

Julie Signorille - First Niagara

Matthew Sikora - Turner Construction Company

NewsletterCEO - Thomas Guagliardo Newsletter Editor - Alicia Bartsch

Newsletter Design:Craig Thornton | Jetsetter Product ions(716) 697-0765 www.jetsetterpro.com

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Erie County85 River Rock Drive, Suite 107Buffalo, New York 14207ph: (716) 873.5833www.beafriend.orginfo@beafriend.org

A Note FromThe C.e.O.

It has been an exciting and busy time for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Erie County! It is a pleasure to share with you our Annual Report that highlights our financial success and the impact of our mentoring programs.

Your support, as a donor, volunteer, or community partner, is always the key to our success in helping children in our community reach their full potential in life and achieve great things. Thank you.

We are proud to celebrate two remarkable Big Sisters who have provided their Littles with support and guidance for the last 9 years. Congratulations Janet McMahon and Maureen Ronan, the recipients of the 2nd Annual Thomas Hore and Josephine Santoro Hore Big of the Year Award.

With the generous support of our community we will impact the lives of 435 children in 2016. The majority of those children live in the City of Buffalo, but thanks to some new partnerships, we are now reaching children in other areas of Erie County as well as in neighboring counties. In this report, you will learn about these new programs and partnerships, including expansion in our Site Based Mentoring Program and a new High School Bigs Mentoring Program.

Regardless of where the children in our program live, with you by our side, we know that our structured mentoring programs will have a positive and measurable impact that will change their lives for the better, forever.

Thank you for making the work we do possible.

Thomas GuagliardoC.E.O.

Find us on Facebook atBBBS of Erie County

Follow us on Twitter @BBBSEC

Socialize with us!

President

Vice President

Treasurer

Secretary

Chair Emeritus

Alumni - Let’s Re-Connect!Are you a former Big or Little? We’d like to re-connect with you. Visit www.beafriend.org and click on the Alumni Button to sign-up. You will receive special Alumni e-news-letters that include updates on the agency, photos of Alumni Bigs & Littles and invites to upcoming events. We look forward to hearing from you!

expansiOn Of serviCe LOCaTiOns CreaTes new friendships & Big Changes ahead!

Bigs & Litt les in the Kenmore Site Based Pr ogram havingfun over the summer playing a game to practice literacy skil ls.

PHOTOPENDING

Gr oup Ment or ing Pr ogram Litt le Sister C heyenne having

some phot o boot h fun wit h Jessica, our Ment or/Adv ocate

f or t he Seneca Str ong pr ogram.

The past year has been an exciting time for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Erie County. New partnerships for our Site Based Mentoring Program have allowed us to add a site in Kenmore. In this program, children meet one-on-one with their adult volunteer mentor during a scheduled time at each location, with the relationship support of a Site Coordinator.

Almost three years ago, the agency expanded outside of Erie County through a partnership with the Seneca Nation of Indians and Seneca Strong to provide a Group Mentoring Program in Cattaraugus County. Moving into the third year, this partnership remains strong, with a Big Brothers Big Sisters of Erie County staff member located in the area to provide fun and education-al activities to girls from the Seneca Nation that live near and around Salamanca.

Additionally, a partnership created with the Lewiston-Porter Central School District will bring our program to Niagara County this fall. Similar to a Site Based Mentoring model, High School Bigs pairs intermediate/elementary (4th and 5th graders) school students with high school sophomores and juniors as their men-tors. The matches will meet weekly afterschool to participate in activities planned to enrich the school experience of both the Little and Big!

With partnerships expanding in Erie County and in two sur-rounding counties, our Board of Directors and staff felt it was time the agency’s name and official service area was reflective. We have started the process with Big Brothers Big Sisters of America to become the organization’s assigned service provider in Cattaraugus, Chautauqua and Niagara Counties. The additional service area designation from our National office will allow us to easily expand in these areas when partnership opportunities and funding become avail-

able. Our incorporated name of Be-A-Friend Program, Inc. will remain the same but our “doing business as” name of Big

Brothers Big Sisters of Erie County will be changed to reflect this broader service area. We anticipate this name change will occur in 2017.

This is an exciting time as our organization grows to impact the lives of more children. If you’d like to learn more about our ex-pansion and partnerships, our leadership team would welcome the chance to chat with you.

We can be reached at info@beafriend.org or 873-5833.

Celebrating Women Who Move Our City

M a k i n g O u r w O r k p O s s i B L e

The 3rd Annual Women Who Move the City event, held on April 20, 2016, brought together nearly 350 people to celebrate women who volunteer their time, energy and passion to make a BIG difference in our community. A BIG thank you to our event sponsors, vendors and attendees for helping to raise over $20,000 to support our mentoring program.

Congratulations again to the 2016 Honorees – Liz Callahan, Sister Mary Augusta Kaiser, Susan O’Sullivan, Maggie Shea, Shannon Sommer and Carmaletta Zandi. Big Brothers Big Sisters is proud to celebrate these women and the women who make our work possible each and every day by volunteering their time as Big Sisters; helping us change the lives of the young women and men in our community.

The 10th Annual “Fore the Children” Golf Tournament was even bigger and better than last year! 130 golfers participated in the event on July 25, 2016 to raise a record amount - $60,000 to support Big Brothers Big Sisters and our mentoring programs! Longtime friend of the agency and tournament participant, Rich Jureller, Director of Community Relations for the Buffalo Sabres, received the 2016 Hedwig “De” Moss Leadership Award for his years of support.

Thank you to all of the golfers, supporters and corporate sponsors, especially Presenting Sponsor–PCB Piezotronics, for being part of the event.

8th AnnualMagical Moments winter gala

Saturday, November 19, 2016seneca niagara Casino & hotel

We look forward to celebrating with you as we honor some of the incredible people and companies who help bring Big Brothers Big Sisters mission to life. To learn more about this year’s event and ways to participate, visit us online at www.beafriend.org.

Longtime supporter, Rich Jurel ler (center) received the 2016

Hedwig “De” Moss Leadership Award from the award’s namesake,

De Moss, and BBBSEC Board Chair Emeritus, David T. Hore.

f O r i n f O r M a T i O n a B O u T u p C O M i n g e v e n T s , O r T O M a k e a d O n a T i O n T O s u p p O r T O u r w O r k , v i s i T u s O n L i n e a T w w w . B e a f r i e n d . O r g

Celebrating Support “Fore” the Children

Join Us in Celebration!

Congratulations to Big Sisters Janet McMahon and Mau-reen Ronan on being named the 2016 Thomas Hore and Josephine Santoro Hore Bigs of the Year! This award was created last year after the agency received a significant donation from long-time supporter, David T. Hore, in honor of his parents and their loving support and guidance. In that spirit, the award recognizes a current volunteer men-tor who dedicates their time to being a consistent and car-ing role model for a child facing adversity. The Hore Fam-ily reviews the nominations of current BBBSEC volunteer mentors submitted by BBBSEC staff members and deter-mines a winner. However, the intertwined story of two of this year’s nominees, who are matched with Little Sisters from the same family, moved them so much they decided to name two honorees.

Big Sister Janet and Big Sister Maureen were introduced to their respective Little Sisters Rahtia and Rahbisha, ages 8 and 6 at the time, on the same day in September 2007. Journey ahead 9 years and these two matches are still together and as strong as ever. Throughout the years, the two matches have enjoyed multiple activities together including annual BBBSEC events like the sum-mer picnic and harvest festival. In addition to providing amazing support to their Little Sisters, Big Sister Janet and Big Sister Maureen have also been a support sys-tem for each other as they navigated all of the changes and obstacles in the lives of the girls who are now teens.

Big Sister Janet became a volunteer because she was looking for a volunteer opportunity where she could make a positive difference in someone else’s life and have some fun while doing so. She was familiar with our program because she had previously been involved with BBBS in Michigan for 10 years. Janet and her Little Sis-ter Rahtia usually see each other a few times a month on Tuesdays. Janet was able to introduce Rahtia to horse-back riding through our program and the two have vol-unteered together. They also enjoy baking together and this sparked an interest in culinary sciences for Rahtia. Rahtia currently attends Emerson High School and Ja-net is excited for her Little Sister, who she feels is more confident and less shy, to be the first in her family to receive a high school diploma.

Big Sister Maureen became a volunteer after her young-est child set out for college and she wanted to find meaningful volunteer work. Over the past 9 years to-gether, Maureen and Little Sister Rahbisha have gone to the zoo, theater and sporting events. They have also had unique experiences like having dinner with Rahbi-sha’s teacher and taking swimming lessons. The two also enjoy cooking together and occasionally share dinner with an elderly woman from Maureen’s church. Maureen has enjoyed watching Rahbisha grow from an outgoing child to a more introspective young adult.

We are excited to recognize these two amazing volun-teer Big Sisters and celebrate the 9 years of friendship with their Littles at our Magical Moments Winter Gala in November!

MEET OUR 2016 BIGS OF THE YEAR!

The 2016 Women W ho Move the C ity Honorees with Event Emcee, Janet Snyder fr om K ISS 98.5 (far r ight); Event C hairs, Susan

Gast le and Lindsay Rich and BBBSEC Board Member and Big Sister, C hristine Farr ow. The beginning of two amazing 9-year f riendships!

Little Sister Rahtia with Big Sister Janet.

Big Sister Maureen with Little Sister Rahbisha

Program Outcome EvaluationExecutive Summary

The mission of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Erie County (BBBSEC) is to provide children facing adversity with strong and enduring, professionally supported 1-to-1 relationships that change their lives for the better, forever. BBBSEC has three mentoring programs through which it achieves this mission, the Community Based Mentor-ing program, the Site Based Mentoring program and the Group Mentoring Program.

These children work everyday towards achieving their personal goals and they make progress in many positive outcomes as a result of their relationship with their Big Brother or Big Sister. As a way to quantify the positive outcomes that children in our program achieve, BBBSEC administers surveys.

The agency evaluates each program through three different evaluative tools. The Youth Outcomes Survey measures changes in the child’s attitude towards both positive and negative behaviors. The second measure, the Program-Based Outcome Evaluation, assesses the percentage of children in each program that have shown improvement in the 21 developmental assets directly impacted by mentoring, as set forth by the Search Institute. Finally, the Grade Level Promotion Rates for each program are also monitored as a way to more effectively measure our children’s academic achievement.

As you review this Executive Summary, we hope that you will come to appreciate the positive impact that having a Big Brother or Big Sister has for a child. The following data was collected from July 2015 to June 2016.

Program Outcome Evaluation

Area of Confidence

Self-Confidence: Improvement in a sense of being able to do or accomplish something.

96.1%

Ability to Express Feelings: Improvement in ability to reveal, talk about or discuss feelings.

96.8%

Sense of the Future: Improvement in awareness and interest in educational and career opportunities.

98.6%

Area of CompetenceSchool Performance: Improvement in grades.

91.2%

Attitude Toward School: Improvement in positive attitude about going to school and what can be learned.

88.8%

School Preparedness: Improvement in completing homework and other assignments.

91.1%

Area of Caring

Respectfulness of Other Cultures: Improvement in understanding and not stereotyping other ethnic, racial, language or national groups.

99.2%

Relationship with Peers: Improvement in social interactions with person of own age.

94.3%

Relationship with Other Adults: Improvement in interactions with adults who are not family members.

96.3%

Youth Outcomes Survey

84.6% of our children have maintained or improved positive feelings regarding their ability to achieve future educational outcomes.

83% of our children maintained or showed improvement in their attitude towards avoiding risky behaviors.

86% of our children maintained or improved their feeling’s of social acceptance

Statement of ActivitiesFor the Year Ended December 31, 2015

Bonadio & Co., LLP. prepared the 2015 audit. A full copy of the annual audit can be obtained from Be-A-Friend Program Inc. / Big Brothers Big Sisters of Erie County.

The audit report is filed with the New York State Office of the Attorney General, Charities Bureau, located at 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271.

Support & Revenue Contributions $353,633 Grants & Contracts $185,917 Special Events Revenue $354,853 Service Contracts $81,250 Non-cash Contributions $0 Interest Income $64

Total Support & Revenue $975,717

Expenses Program Services $648,434 Management & General $163,157 Fundraising $117,233

Total Expenses $928,824

Yo ur Gen er o si t y At W or k

We are excited to announce that at the end of the 2015-2016 academic year, 99.6% of our Little Brothers and Sisters matched with a men-tor, were promoted to the next grade level. We celebrated this achievement, along with honoring 32 Little Brothers and Sisters being promoted to 9th grade and 8 graduating from high school, at our Annual Welcome Summer Picnic in June. We are excited for the bright academic year and future for all of our kids! Thank you for your support to make that possible!Celebrating al l of our Bigs & Littles at our Annual

Welcome Summer P icnic that achieved educational

milestones!

Big Brothers Big Sistersof Erie County

www.beafr iend.org