It takes a community to raise a child, and for young pre-teen girls, a mentor can be everything. A friend, a confidante, a role model.
For the past 15 years, the Big Sister Program has made it their mission to promote healthy, supportive and enduring friendships through its mentorship program.
The formula is simple: pairing post-seminary and 8th grade girls together. The mentor and mentee meet up once a week to connect over anything from shopping to a cup of coffee, studying for an upcoming test or playing a board game.
The result is nothing short of amazing. Parents, teachers, mentors and mentees alike see the power of true mentorship. In an unpressured, relaxed setting, our young girls are free to express themselves to an attentive adult. They are heard, encouraged, and supported.
Led by Hindy Pruss of Crown Heights, the organization has been immensely successful. Over the last decade and a half, the Big Sister Mentoring Program has seen over 1,200 girls come through its program in the form of mentors and mentees. The program is involved with all of the major Crown Heights girl’s schools, including Beis Rivkah, Bnos Menachem, Chabad Girls Academy, and Bnos Chomesh, receiving appreciative support from leading Mechanchos in the Crown Heights community. Mrs. Leah Jacobson, principal of Beis Rivkah School’s English Elementary, describes the program as an essential one that provides crucial positive relationships. “We all know the impact of having a relationship with an older sister – there’s nothing like it!”
The program is highly personalized, taking great effort to pair the girls with the proper mentor based on personality, temperament, interests, and specific needs. The mentors have workshops with professionals throughout the year to help guide them on how to build these relationships. The young girls experience substantial growth and maturity, having found a helpful role model and friend.
This past summer everything changed. Pruss received notice that the government funding that supported the program was being pulled. With the moral support of the community schools, Hindy set out to independently keep the program going. An initiative as important as this, one shaping the future of our children, cannot be left behind. As Mrs. Dena Gorkin, principal of Bnos chomesh Academy , emphatically stated, “I hear from parents, teachers and the young girls themselves: The Big Little Sister Program changes lives. It builds character and it builds a sense of belonging and feeling cared for.”
Now it’s up to our community to step up and stand behind this mission. From this Sunday through Tuesday, the Big Sister Mentorship Program is running a fundraising campaign to keep its operations running. Let’s demonstrate that through our collective generosity and kindness we can nourish our children with the pivotal relationships to set them on the path to a bright and successful future!
Click here to donate now! https://raisethon.com/bigsister
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This program is so vital for our children!! So happy to support it!
An incredible program!!
Love The drone footage
I personally volunteered in the Big sister program and aside for it being so impactful for my littler sister, I can personally say that being in that position was so fulfilling and enriching for me! So happy that this is still going on!
So grateful to have this program in our community!
My now adult daughter benefitted from this program when she was in elementary school. I will iyh donate
This idea of mentors for teenagers is the secret to stopping kids from going off the derech. I myself had a son who at 15 was going off. I got him two mentors. Yes it costed me money but today twenty years later he sits in kollel and writes Sforim. People ask me how and what I did to turn him into a serious ben Torah. It’s getting the right mentor. Parents can’t always save their kids. It takes an outsider. My recommendation to parents is to give tutors to their kids when they are 8 or 10 years old.… Read more »
I wish somebody would do this for the boys..
The big little sister mentoring program gives support and connection and growth to these lasting and impactful relationships of the big and little sisters who are paired up. A lot of thought goes into pairing them up! May you continue to be successful in all the amazing and special work you do, Hindy!!
Hatzlacha rabah!
I know personally many many people who were in this program and were deeply impacted for the better! Happy to support such and incredible and vital cause! Helping the woman of tommorow is never insignificant. Thank you Hindy for the incredible effort and work you put forth in creating and upkeeping this unbelievable program.
So beautiful that there is an organization for our own! Charity begins at home! Thank you! Much Hatzlacha!
Amazing work
but what the heck is the government thinking when they defund such programs? Why are they funding bottomless pit programs that reward the unproductive for being unproductive, and why are self-serving politicians advocating for reducing tax benefits of charitable donations? If this isn’t warped thinking I don’t know what is.
I’ve had it with gallus!
This program is what it’s all about. Creating positive role models, positive peer pressure, positive reinforcement and positive guidence. They only go lead the next Generation is with love and friendship .