And good morning. Welcome to Community Connection.
On this Friday, August the eighth, Nathan Thompson here in studio and we got a treat for you today. Good morning from the Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Bartlesville area.
How are you today?
Hey, I'm doing good. I'm doing good. Glad to be here.
Well, we're always glad to have you in studio. And you've got a big new event that is coming up here just a couple of days, right.
We are, Yeah, August sixteenth, the Bartlesville Mystery Gala. Yeah, we're real excited about it now.
You know, we've talked about this before whenever you're in a previous next We was working the shift that morning too. So this is a really cool, like clue in spa hired program, is that right?
Yeah? Yeah, so yeah, brand new. We have hired six actors from Tulsa. They're gonna come down give us an event. But but the event, I mean, there's so many more things going on, uh where we have a silent auction that's going live today, so that's gonna be pretty exciting. There'll be a live auction at the event. We're gonna have a wine pool, yeah, dinner and then yeah, the clue event. So yeah, the actors, they came down from Tulsa. Pretty cool little company we found they started on Shark
Tank that show, so yeah Shark Yeah. Yeah, it's gonna be it's gonna be a blast. The company is called the Murder Mystery Company.
Gotcha.
I called them and said, you know this, this is a children's nonprofit. Can we do something less murdery? They said absolutely, We have a a missing painting style clue. So yeah, that's that's what we're gonna do.
Ah, that's so much fun.
And you say there are very limited tickets available, Yes, yes.
Yeah, this Yeah, if you want to get tickets, I would get them in to day really so yeah.
And this is gonna be at the Johnstone Stair Building, the refinery up on the third floor, on the.
Third floor, yeah, above hideaway. Yeah, it's gonna be really fun.
And for folks who have never been up there, I mean it is a beautiful, beautiful venue overlooking downtown Bartlesville, and the chandeliers are up in the air.
Personally, I think, yeah, it already gives off kind of those clue vibes a little bit, so yeah, sure does.
Oh well that's gonna be great.
So we'll have a missus Peacock and everybody.
That's it.
Yeah, problem exactly.
And so again talk talk a bit Todd. Again we're talking to Todd Edwards. I should have said that at the very beginning. My apologies. Todd Edwards, the area director for Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Oklahoma for the Bartlesville area, And uh so talk about a little bit about you know, it is a fundraiser for your program. And again I know tons of people are are aware. Maybe just to name recognition what Big Brothers Big Sisters
actual does. So tell tell our audience Todd what the goal of the organization is and how you guys operate.
Yeah.
Absolutely, we really focus on that one to one mentoring. So kids have the opportunity to do all kinds of things in groups, after school programs, different things like that. But what we do is we just walk hand in hand with them, side by side. We ask our volunteers to come in and essentially, yeah, be that big brother,
be that big sister. We ask for people to come in, you know, a couple hours a month to spend just one on one and that's that's doing simple things, cooking, dinner with them, go in grocery, shopping, hanging out, get your nails done, if your girls, you know, those sorts of things. Yeah, so that's yeah, that's what we really do, that deep, deep one to one mentoring exactly.
And I know I'm again making another assumption because I haven't talked to you.
About this as well, but.
Historically there has been a shortage for.
Specifically big brothers.
Yeah, and so what are we looking at so far for this year as far as pairing up a mentor with a little.
It's been We've had a lot of growth this year. When I first stepped in, it's only been about ten months now, we had twenty six kids on the waiting list. We have matched at this moment more kids. Well, let me say this, we've served more kids than we served last year and we have a lot of the year left to go. So we are growing so much. So when I came in having those twenty six kids, you'd think we've caught up quite a bit on that. We actually were sitting at thirty waiting littles at this point.
So which it's a good thing, right, I mean, our program is having so much success. People are hearing about it. We are making such a good positive impact on the youth and words getting out. So yeah, that's that's the crazy thing is there's still a huge need. But the good thing is we live in an amazing community as well. Yeah, the people that can make that difference, that want to
make that difference. The volunteers I've been seeing coming in saying hey, yeah, I'll match up with a kid outstanding. I mean, they really really are. I'm so excited about the future to hear the impact that we're going to be making next year, they're already kind of rolling in. It's amazing.
Yeah, absolutely, no, what I just remembered, Sorry about this. I forgot to turn on the microphone for our Facebook Live. So hold on just a second. There we go, microphone, there go, there we go. Sorry for everybody watching on Facebook Live. If you're on kwetv dot com, it's were confined Facebook Live.
I forgot to punch a button.
Happens.
It always happens to me, it seems anyway.
So again we're talking with Todd Edwards, with big brothers and big sisters, and for those of you who are just now able to hear us, we're talking about the Mystery Gala. That's coming up as a big fundraiser as well as how the organization Big Brothers, Big Sisters really serves those in our community, those kids who really need that.
So the mentoring you.
Were talking about, you know, just going out doing activities with kids, and you know what, what is the purpose of that, Todd?
So, really are the kids that we have in our program most of them come from either a single parent or they're living with grandparents, and they just don't really get exposed to a lot of different things. We do. We do background checks, we do large interviews with the kids, and we ask a lot of good questions for the volunteers. Either we really want to match up, just a really great match. And it's so funny. I see a lot of kids come in. What are you into video games?
You know?
But they're just it's not a lot. I used to want to try to dig out and I really really started realizing that these these kids really haven't been introduced to a lot of things, right, A lot of the stories we here coming in, you know, oh, my Big
brothers would be fishing. I had no idea how fun fishing was or basketball, or you know, we have a little sister who was introduced to volleyball and now she she can't wait to be on the team and they're practicing, and so yeah, seeing all of that just different doors opening for them. It's inspiring. It's it's amazing.
And I think you make a good point, Todd, that in order to become a big to one of these kids, you don't have to do extravagant things. I mean, you were just talking about going and fishing. You know, kids, especially some kids in our community these days, you know, they have that disconnect between what is what we would consider regular life outside of video games. You know, they don't know that some of them don't know that fishing
is a great activity. You're going hiking out at Oshhill State Park is a great activity, you know, Or just as you were talking about doing something just around town for the girls, going and get their nails done, go and seeing a movie together.
I mean, that's really what it is.
It's about building that bond between a child an adult to make that child a more well rounded individual as they grow into adulthood.
Makes them feel confident, it helps their relationships. Just give them someone that they can talk to, which I mean even as an adult, you know, I've got a wonderful wife. I'm able to come home and invent to her. Just having that person to talk to is so beneficial. And that's kind of what we what we provide when we when I had came in here stepped in. We had one really good partnership with the YMCA Biggs Littles. They
can go to the y absolutely for free. And and when I first started, I wanted to make the biggest impact I could, and so I did that started by asking questions, you know, what can I do? What's our biggest hurdle? The number one answer I got was I'm just not sure what I would do if I if I had a little what do we do? So I thought, man, if we could, if we could expand on that YMCA thing. We now have sixteen different partnerships with different community members.
One really amazing story just came in two weeks ago. We do have a partnership now also with the Climb Tulsa Okay, Biggs Littles again they can go absolutely for free. A big brother had stepped in and said, I'm going to take my little climbing. He's never been, so this will be really cool for him. And I was able to meet the little not too long after that, and of course he was so so excited, right, because what fourteen year old boy wouldn't be excited about climbing. But
that's not what he was excited about. He said, Todd, that's I finally got to go to Tulsa. Oh wow, right, so I mean, yeah, just making those you know, his whole world was just expanded by so much. You know, here I was thinking, these partnerships are helping the bigs make it easier. It's really impacting these littles just as much.
Sure, and you know, you really and to be a big I think a lot of people think that you just had to have you do have to have good moral character. I mean that I don't want to be little that but right, but you don't have to be an expert at everything.
You don't have to be.
Just be human, to be human and just be there as additional support for these kids in our community who may not have that outside of this program.
It. Yep, don't have to be a psychologist, a child expert. Yeah, just a friend. I mean that's really what they what they want, what they need. And I hear all the time the big saying, oh I got so much more out is here. I thought I was going to be the one giving, and I've got so much out of this, So yeah, you're absolutely right.
Yeah, it's it's I've spoken to a couple of my friends have have been very involved in the program, Rachelle Wilson is and Julia May in the past. She may actually be doing it again this year. She's back in town. So just talking to them and the differences has made in their lives. Yeah, it's incredible. You can tell. You can tell a big just by the smile that they put on their face where they talk about this program.
It's just like it has.
Been not only a life changing experience for me, but I know I'm really giving back to this kid.
Who needs me, right, yep, and we know that it works. This year, they released a thirty year study through Harvard and the US National Treasury. They were specifically looking at the economic impact, and so it's always great to hear those stories, but to have a study done by Harvard and the Treasury saying Nope, we looked at kids in your program that're in the nineties. Then we looked at them now in their life compared to their peers, and they make more money, they go to college more often,
they have better relationships. There were just so many different things, just positive impacts that we can see the data, the numbers on.
Well, the Big Mystery Gala coming up next weekend. It's going to be a lot of fun and of course bowling for kid's sake. It's you know, a few months away, but right now it's really the active time to get those teams ready.
That's it. I'm already thinking about it. We're already planning it. We made a lot of changes and we're going to continue to amp up the energy next year.
Absolutely absolutely Well.
We've been talking with Todd Edwards, the area director for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Oklahoma, right here in Bartlesville.
Thank you so much for spending some time with us this morning.
Thanks for having me.
All right, you're very welcome.
All Right, K one News time and it's almost eight forty seven. We'll have our forecast.
Coming up in just a bit. Stay tuned.