Big Brothers Big Sisters in transformational stage after regional offices closed

By Kelly Terpstra@charlescitypress.com

For well over half a century, Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Northeast Iowa has provided one-on-one mentoring for disadvantaged youths that can be a life-changing experience for a Big or a Little.

Yolanda Williams wants to keep that tradition alive in this part of the state, but it hasn’t been easy.

Williams took over as executive director of the northeast Iowa branch a year ago and has been tasked with the responsibility of making sure quality matches are still able to be made under an ever-tightening budget.

“When you bring a new leader in, you’re going to have change,” said Williams. “I was brought in to make change for the agency. We just want to make sure that we’re serving the whole and not just looking at specific offices. We’re saying all of our kids matter.”

Big Brothers Big Sisters has entered into a transformational stage and has begun a three-year restructuring plan.

“We weren’t seeing necessarily the quality matches that should be happening under the Big Brothers Big Sisters name,” said Williams. “We wanted to make sure the matches that we have open right now are getting quality support and they’re getting what they need to sustain and help to grow those relationships.”

That led to a decision by the northeast Iowa’s main board of directors to close regional offices in six counties, including the Floyd County location in Charles City.

“It’s more fiscally responsible to have us travelling into those locations and spending a couple of days there as opposed to operating an entire office,” Williams added. “The location wasn’t the problem. Our funding right now and our sustainability didn’t support having that space open.”

Big Brothers Big Sisters in Floyd County operated out of an office on the ground floor of the county courthouse as recently as last year. Williams said it was then moved into a school setting and maintained a location at a suite in the 700 block of N. Main before that office was shuttered within the last month.

Floyd and Chickasaw County had a match support specialist serve in a dual capacity prior to those offices closing. Williams said the Waverly location in Bremer County closed a few weeks ago and that Buchanan County’s office was shut down in the spring of 2019.

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northeast Iowa serves seven counties: Fayette, Buchanan, Floyd, Chickasaw, Bremer, Black Hawk and Butler. The main office is still located in Waterloo and has now been reduced to five staff members, including Williams.

“I also have done a lot of cultural changes in the office. We weren’t as cohesive as a staff we needed to be,” said Williams. “It’s really difficult to manage staff when you have them all over and they’re not really working together as they should be.”

Williams said she considers the regional office closings temporary.

“Before we open another office moving forward, we have to have some type of sustainability plan to make sure that we don’t keep going through this rollercoaster of our counties,” she said.

There will still be work and school-based mentoring programs going on in Charles City and participating communities during the transitional period. For the time being, the organization is not taking any more requests for matches.

“This move is very much for us to be able to sustain our entire agency. That’s really what this focus is about – maintaining the long term resiliency of this agency in this community,” said Williams.

One of those worked-based mentoring programs is at Zoetis, Charles City’s pharmaceutical manufacturer of medicine and vaccinations for pets and livestock.

“They’re a newer partner and they’ve been extremely wonderful to work with,” Williams said.

Zoetis runs a mentoring program called “Beyond School Walls” and Williams said 10 kids in Floyd County are involved with that work-based service through Big Brothers Big Sisters.

There are 18 community-based matches in Floyd County, according to Williams. There are two matches through the school and two pending matches.

She said in Floyd County there are 14 Littles waiting to be matched — the term the program uses for the kids in the program. The adult mentors are the Bigs.

Chickasaw County has three community-based matches and eight Littles ready to be matched.

Williams said she has Littles in some counties that have been waiting to be matched for up to two years.

There have been 267 students or youngsters served by Big Brothers Big Sisters since the start of the year, she said.

“Ultimately, my goal is to make sure that we’re serving the young people that are already enrolled in our program – making sure that our children are safe, that our Bigs are being supported and are getting quality, monthly match support,” said Williams. “Once we have done that, then we will look at reopening enrollment and adding more matches to our caseload.”

Brooke Barber is Floyd County’s recruitment and enrollment specialist. Williams said Barber travels twice a month to Charles City to work with Bigs and Littles. She also covers Chickasaw County and has a few matches down in Black Hawk County.

Williams said the “Be a Big, Get a Big” portion of the Big Brothers Big Sisters website will be closed down also in the near future.

Some of Williams’ main long-term goals will be asking for financial donations for the non-profit organization to stay afloat, making sure the program’s components are adhered to so matches can be successful and filling in any gaps in service.

Losing a grant forced the group to make some decisions, she said.

“I’ve really spent a year doing a lot of evaluation of programs, administration and operations, grants – everything that we have so that we can have a good picture of how does this agency sustain for the next 57 years.”

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northeast Iowa started in 1963 at its current headquarters in Waterloo. In the 1970s the organizations started to match up girls with mentors.

Big Brothers Big Sisters was founded on a national level in New York in 1904 and serves children or young adults age 5-16.

More than 145,000 Littles were served in 2018 according to the Big Brothers Big Sisters annual report.