NANTUCKET—Big Brothers Big Sisters has returned to the island after a 12-year absence with a perfect first match.
Nine-year-old Nayeli wants to be a veterinarian, and Libby Buck is a wildlife ecologist with the Linda Loring Nature Foundation. For their first outing the pair went hiking among those 275 pristine acres.
"The sheer excitement that she has is contagious," Buck said. "The opportunity to positively influence a kid has always appealed to me."
Women volunteers like Buck far exceed men, with the need for male volunteers rivaling the need for funding, said JR Mell, regional director of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Cape Cod and the Islands since 2016.
The organization partners with under-resourced families to provide children with one-to-one mentoring. This month, as part of its Erase the Wait campaign, BBBS is pushing to recruit 88 male volunteers to accommodate the boys on the region's waiting list.
In 2012, the Nantucket program separated from BBBS and opened Mentoring Youth Nantucket, and later merged with Fairwinds. BBBS reopened service on the island in January.
"This is good news for the kids of Nantucket who can really benefit from having that additional positive adult in their corner," Mell said. "Volunteers are there to be a listening ear. Those few hours twice a month is all that it takes to be a Big in our program."
Buck says she is happiest about keeping that commitment alive.
"It's an opportunity for me to pay it forward, because I grew up with a Big Sister," she said. "I can't imagine not having had that kind of support throughout my life."
