Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome, and it's time now for community connection right here on Cane one the wine that you Tristmas Charlene do. How do you do? I'm just fine? And how are you? I'm great? And you brought friends? I did? Thank John B. How you doing? Tom doing super good? Now I understand we've got a really big, big, big, big big announcement coming up, especially since we're talking about Big Brothers and Big Sisters. Everything's
got to be big. Everything has to be big. Yes, well, our focus today is on big events. But that's the way I tell you big. It's big. It's a big event. John b And and Barbara are our chairs for this year and we're really excited about that. And Big Brothers Sisters of Oklahoma was just awarded the national Large Agency Alliance Agency of the Year. That's a big deal. How does it really happen? Well, there's certain criteria you have to meet in financial sustainability, quality of matches,
and children served. And I think there were forty eight Large Agency Alliance agencies that the Big brother Speceis of America is split into like the small agencies, mid size and large agencies. So we're in the group with Kansas City, California, Atlanta, Minneapolis, large large agencies, and we have so getting the national recognition as Agency of the Years, very very exciting and big. Yes. That and we have a big waiting list too. I have thirty
two children that are waiting. That's really twelve of those are girls, the rest are boys. And we really do need people to step up and decide that they would like to share their time and their self with a young person in our community. This is great. Now we we got the big event. So John, these are big shoes. You're feeling here. It's a big job. Big So how big is this big event going to be? Well, I hope it's huge. Barbara and I were really flattered and honored
to get asked to be in honor chairs of this. I wish Barbara could have been here this morning. She's a little shy getting in front of a microphone, but I'm happy to represent her. But don't don't think for a second she's not a big part of this helping us do this. But you know, I was thinking back. You know, I've been involved in a lot of different noper profits over the years. On I've not done a lot
with I've supported, but not is Big Brothers Big Sisters. Uh. My son, John Jay happens to be on the board, which is I'm thrilled that he's contributing there and he loves it. He loves the mission and he's told me more and more about it. But you know, sometimes the simplest ideas are the best, right. I think when you have children that just need an adult in their life that will, you know, be able to give you an example to them, to take an interest in them, to
show they care. And it's it's powerful. It's powerful. And Big Brothers Big Sister has been around a long time and their results show are you know, they they speak for themselves. They had to. They always have a great goal for kid's Sakes fundraiser again they reached their goal this year. It's amazing how well Bartlesville will step up and support these kind of good causes because it truly is. It's it's very worthwhile, very meaningful. When you support
this, you're helping individual children. And I will while I'm right now, while I'm thinking about it. You heard the thirty two kids on a waiting list, and it could be a little intimidating, thinking, well, I can't be a mentor. What do I have to offer? Maybe you don't. But the fact of the matter is it's just a little bit of time. It doesn't have to be a big, big event every time you do
something with them big. You could pick them up and take them to the grocery store with you, spend an hour just talking to them in the car, ask them how things are going. You know, it doesn't have to be just a huge production every time you want to have a little time with your mentee. So people need to remember that, and I think that the adults can get a lot out of it as well. But don't be intimidated by it. Step up, call the office, ask them about it.
Learn and let's help these thirty two kids that are on the waiting list if we always encourage it really is about looking at the things that you do every day you could involve a child in because we all have the same amount of time. We're not going to get anymore, and so it's a matter of what we do with that time. And it really is a few hours a few times a month, and it makes a significant impact on that child's life, on the life of the family and that child's family going forward, you're
impacting future generations as well. And as you said, the volunteers, most of the they come in thinking I'm going to do something for this child. And you've heard it here Tom several times when we have mentors that are talking about their mass relationships that they get as much out of the relationship as the kid does. So it really is something that is life changing for everybody. This is great. So what are you waiting for? Folks? Have you
been sitting on this idea? Get off that perch and get stay out line. Let's keep going. We count You can come to the Big Event and learn more about it. Tell us about the Big Event. What is the Big Event? Hit show? What do you tell them all about event? It's the twenty fifth anniversary of Big Event as our fundraiser. That's big in itself and we when we started that fundraiser, the only other gala in town was the Symphony Ball, So that was back in nineteen ninety nine and now
now there's one on every weekend, practically good one. So our presenting sponsor is Sutterfield Financial. Nice and Anjeanette and her Trio will be the entertainment for this year, and so what we're going to do is kind of take a look at some of the themes over the years that have been particularly you know, if you were there, you're still talking about it kind of themes and
just kind of do just celebrate the work that we have done. So we've been archiving the pictures on our wall so that we can do a digital so that to preserve them because we have big pictures going back only to nineteen ninety nine when we became a satellite of the Cult organization. But we have people who come in the office and they'll be they'll find their match on the board. And you know, we've had littles that have come back to the bass.
We've had bigs come back that did more than one one little. So so it's going to be a fun time. Tickets to you go to big event. Bartlesville dot org is the website. Sponsorship opportunities are still open, but you need to give me a call because we want to make sure that you get all your sponsor benefits and oh yeah, those are important. You know, I've been to a couple of these big events with Charlie Big. That's just the beginning. These things are wonderful. These are well planned out,
These things are down to the detail. These things are just awesome. You walk away feeling like you're a part of something, and then you become part of something if you haven't been already, whether you're going to be a sponsor, donor, or perhaps even a big and that's really how great these things are. And we're so grateful for the community that steps up. We raised one hundred and one hundred and fifty five nine in bowl, which is
back to pre twenty twenty, pre pandemic. It took us four years to recover from that, but you know, the community steps up to support big brothers, big sisters, and we really do appreciate that. We really appreciate our sponsors, our individual donors, our corporate donors, and our mentors because without them we'd have nothing. We you know, I used to say the only two things that we need are money and mentors, but then recently I've
been saying we need three things. We need mentors, we need money, and we need advocates advocates. Some people will be mentors, some people will be donors. Everyone can be an advocate. So if being a mentor doesn't fit in in your life at this moment in time. But you can advocate
for Big Brothers Big Sisters. You can talk to your friends because surely you know somebody who would be a great role model for a young boy or girl and just talk to them and say, hey, have you heard about the Big Brothers Big Sisters and have you thought about being a mentor, and encourage them to to give at least give us a call and find out the information. Great, you just say, give a call or look at the website
to a little bit too. If that's for getting a little bit more information, then get the details from Charleyne. That's always a good idea too. So where is the big event going to be? Help? It is going to be at Hillcrest Country Club. Again, we really like that venue. It's nice. I did I loved it. Did that eighties theme? We did? Yes, that was fun. But anyway, that's a great to set up there and it's ideal for what you're going to be doing well.
And Cindy is so easy to work with. Yeah, that's true. So it'll be at Hillcrest Country Club. It's on August the tenth. Tickets are available, sponsorships are available. So we encourage you to think about where we will be reaching out to past chairs to see about some of them coming back since it is the twenty fifth anniversary, and that'd be great. It's really going to be a bit nostalgic for some. For others, if this is your first time, it's going to be an eye opener because you're going to
say, wow, this is wonderful. Well why wasn't I a part of this before? And you know, you've got to get those people have it out a V eight moment. But you know, all the same, as long as you're on board, you're on board. That's good. John. You've got to be just, you know, ecstatic to be a part of this big twenty fifth thing. There's no doubt about it. It's this, Yeah, I am ecstatic. It's just it's such a great organization. As we've been talking, I've been thinking, and one of the proofs of that
is just the longevity. How they have consistently gained support in this community over all these years. And you don't do that unless you're achieving, unless you're doing something worthwhile. And you know, it's a great national organization. They got great state support, it's got everything it needs. And then of course what Charlene has done locally. And I don't think Charlene really wanted me to mention that her retirement is coming up thirty how many years? Thirty five years?
That's really considering she's only, you know, and forty. So this is a great opportunity to come in not only for our twenty fifth year, but I think that we need to we need this community owes it to Charlene to come out and for her final big event and give her a big send off too, because with all this national state support, it's still local and Charlene's the proof of that. And she's carried she's run this organization beautifully for
all those years, and we just need to keep growing it. We need to find those mentors and can't raise the money and advocate now now there's a thirdday. But I just appreciate, well all you do, Charlene. Oh thank you. John. There's only been that we've served Washington County for forty years, and there's only been three directors, So Connie Lavoy was the first. There was a director for a short period of time, like nine months, and I've been here for thirty five years. So yeah, goodness,
My Goodnesskes, Well, what job well done? Because this ain't that's an understatement. First of all, getting matches, getting the mentors, getting kids paired up, and then the bud raising part of that bowling for kid's sake, my goodness sake that that usually takes a whole staff of people. Charlie did it. We are the largest. We've always raised more for capita than anybody in the state, and we probably raised more for capita than most of
the bulls in the country. Wow, because we're raising I don't know, three dollars and ninety eight cents for every person in the county. So, I mean, it's pretty dark good. That's a lot, that's all, and it's our highest was one hundred and sixty five thousand. I don't know that we'll ever get back to that, because there's a lot of changing demographics and a lot of things that factor into that. But then, as someone pointed out, I see really pointed out, you're only ten thousand from that.
Yeah, that's only ten one thousand dollars, teams, what's the problems achievable? I think we're gonna get that. Showing up sleepless nights, what the heck? You a couple more sponsors. Yeah, so you know, it's it's one of the things that that we're talking about at the state level is how do we get back to our best year ever, the best year
in fundraising, the best year in numbers of children served. You know, we were poised for growth in twenty twenty, and then COVID hit and sort of wiped out, wiped out that for a while, and so now we're poised again and everybody is Oklahoma City is already I believe achieved there. They've served more kids already than they did last year. When we're only in June. You know, that's our goal. We're only from serving more kids than we did last year, but we're about twenty five from our goal for new
matches. So we really you know, we hear the stories. We see the stories every day of the success of kids that are doing better because they had a mentor so I just want other people to engage in that. Well good once again. It's coming up August the tenth. It's going to be at the Hillcrest Country Club. It's the big event, the twenty fifth anniversary, and John B. Kaine and Barbara are working diligently on getting this all
together. Good luck. Charlene helps a lot. But yeah, please, you know, anybody out there if you have just figure out how it fits you and what you might be able to do in any of these areas that could help This organization is it's it really makes a difference for our kids in this community. It does. It truly does Big Brothers, Big Sisters work. We find you on the world world wide web. The website is Big Oklahoma dot org. If you want the Big Event specific, it's Big Event
Bartlesville dot org. Okay, we can give you a call. Can't we tell that still works? You can't nine one eight two one three four five two four and she answers it. I know because I've called her. And you can get everywhere that you need to just going to the main website, which is Big Oklahoma dot org and click on events and you'll see all the events statewide and Big Events logo will be out there, so it is very easy to navigate. And I don't know who put that together, but God
bless well. Kat Miller is our marketing person and she is awesome. All the marketing materials you see that we're using all came We're designed by her. She also got two awards at the national conference this year for her marketing materials, and last year she got two awards as well, So she's she is on the cutting edge. We we are big brothers, big sisters of Oklahoma is on the cutting edge of several things. So we're doing a great job
statewide. We're doing a great you know, we're doing a great job locally, but we can't do it without the support of the people in the community. Let's all make a difference, folks. Let's all make a difference. Big brothers, Big sister John by King Charlie do thank you very much for being with us today. Folks, you have been watching and listening to our broadcast, our community connection right here on Kate one, the one you trust. We'll start this morning with uns