About Our Organization

What does Big Brothers Big Sisters Do?

As part of the nation's largest donor and volunteer supported mentoring network, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southern Arizona makes meaningful, monitored matches between adult volunteers ('Bigs') and children ('Littles'), ages 6 through 21, in Southern Arizona. Our vision is that all youth achieve their full potential.  To that end, our mission is to create and support one-to-one mentoring relationships that ignite the power and promise of youth. We partner with parents, guardians, volunteers and others in the community and hold ourselves accountable for each child in our program achieving higher aspirations, greater confidence and better relationships, avoidance of risky behaviors and educational success.

How does El Tour de Tucson help Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southern Arizona?

When you participate as a fundraising cyclist for Big Brothers Big Sisters, you are defending the potential of children in your community.  As a beneficary of El Tour de Tucson, we depend on the funding and awareness raised by participating cyclists in order to continue carefully matching children with caring adult mentors and providing ongoing support to the child, volunteer mentor and child's family. All monies raised stay in our community!  Today you can Register or Donate to our efforts to change the life of a child forever!

How a Big becomes a Big—and a Little, a Little.

Before we make a match, we do our homework. After someone expresses an interest in becoming a Big Brother, Big Sister or Big Couple, they go through a background check and careful interview process. Then we match Bigs and Littles based on location, personalities and preferences within our Community based programs and our Site-Based Programs. And we provide full support from the start, so matches can grow into lasting, impactful friendships. The entire matching process is made possible through donations—we can't do what we do best without them!  For more information about becoming a Big and our mentoring programs visit www.soazbigs.org. 

What are a Big and Little to do?

Each match is unique, and each mentoring program is unique:

For our Community-Based program, getting together doesn't require a special occasion or expensive activity — just a couple hours twice month doing things the Little and Big already enjoy like playing sports, hiking, reading books, eating pizza, going to the movies...you name it! Bigs will also be there to offer support, inspiration, and advice for their Littles.  Some Bigs meet their Littles on the weekends while other get together on an evening during the week. Each match develops a schedule that works for them. In addition, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southern Arizona organizes 'match events' each month, providing a new experience for Bigs and Littles to attend with other Matches.  

For our Site-Based program, mentor2.0, Bigs and Littles share a combination of in-person and online interactions that equal a total of four hours per month during the school year.  Mentor2.0 serves high school aged youth who have a desire to graduate and prepare for a rewarding future.  Each week Littles are taught by a Match Support Specialist on soft skills developing the mindset needed to graduate, tools to navigate and prepare for college entry, and how to plan for their career path after graduation.  Bigs communicate each week with their Littles through an online platform that guides their feedback and support of the lesson for that week.  Bigs meet with their Litttles at the high school one evening per month.  Big and Little share dinner, socialize and work together to complete an activity that supports that month's lesson.

For more information about Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southern Arizona mentoring programs visit www.soazbigs.org.