Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 13, 1994 TAG: 9402150007
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY ALAN
SOURCE: By SU CLAUSON-WICKER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Martina Bullard, her volunteer Big Sister, smiles. Three years ago, when they were first matched, Sandra would have run off or started talking about the pedestrian's hat instead of answering.
Bullard, a Virginia Tech laboratory specialist, has had a fast-track course in patience and flexibility since she took on a match with a learning disabled child through Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Montgomery County.
She's been embarrassed by tantrums in stores, exhausted by this child who's as active as a whole litter of puppies, but she's also seen a gratifying number of positive changes.
Sandra's mother, a widow with five children, calls Bullard "the most miraculous thing that's happened in our lives." (Big Brothers/Big Sisters policy does not allow identification of children involved in the program.)
``What's so difficult to understand about Sandra is how she can be so together one moment and completely lose it in the next," says her mother. "With four brothers demanding my attention, she wasn't getting as much as she required. Now that Martina has taken over a lot of the tutoring, Sandra's made tremendous strides. She's been mainstreamed into a regular class, and she's making high Cs. And she's coping better - not so many temper tantrums."
Bullard spends at least half a day each week helping Sandra with homework, crafts, cooking projects, and participating in special events such as charity walkathons and Big Brothers/Big Sisters Bowl for Kids' Sake benefit. They also skate, go out to dinner, and attend Sandra's brothers' soccer games. ``We consider Martina one of the family," Sandra's mother says.
Bullard, who's married, says she's learned a lot of strategies for entertaining and managing children. "And I love seeing Sandra make progress," she adds.
Bullard and Sandra are just one of the 23 matches supervised by the local Big Brothers/Big Sisters. The agency has the capacity to monitor 50 pairs if it could attract more eligible adult volunteers.
Special needs children are only a small percentage of those awaiting placement.
Fourteen children are on a waiting list. Some - including Sandra's brothers - for two or three years. The agency especially needs Big Brothers and has been making short-term pairs between women and boys under 8 years old to alleviate some of this demand.
``We've had some children outgrow the waiting list without ever getting matched," says Courtney McGuire, case manager and assistant director of the organization.
To be eligible, children must live in Montgomery County or Radford, come from a single-parent family, and be between the ages of 6 and 16. Because volunteers aren't mental health experts, the agency doesn't accept children with severe psychological problems or alcoholic parents in the home, McGuire says.
Standards for the Big Brothers/Big Sister are more stringent than for most foster parents. In addition to the standard criminal record and driving record checks (no driving under the influence convictions), prospective Bigs, as the agency calls them, must promise to stay in the area at least a year, host a home visit, participate in several hours of training and submit to a probing, interview that examines the candidate's own childhood issues, sexual attitudes and philosophical outlook.
Then they're ready for a match, which McGuire says she does partly by interests, partly by participants' requests and partly by intuition. "If a mom says she wants someone who's Baptist and doesn't drink, I don't consider anyone else.
"The most telling indicator, McGuire says, is how volunteers describe themselves and how the child describes the desired Big. "If they both say, 'fun,' I know I have a match."
Matched pairs often turn out to have birthdays within a few weeks, as well as similar interests, McGuire has found.
Matches tend to grow with the individuals. When Michele Rutledge, now 28, met her Little five and a half years ago when the child was 7, she wondered if Nicole would still need her when she was a teen-ager. She needn't have worried.
``We are like sisters," she says. ``We go to the mall more, and she gives me advice on what to wear. We're so much alike - we both end up getting a basketball at the same time or develop an interest in making jewelry. My husband says she's just like a little me. She looks at him the same way som:wq! etimes and has the same sense of humor. They really made a good match when they put us together.''
Gary Cannon, who's been with the same Little for almost nine years, says the three or four months he had to wait for just the right match was well worth the delay. His Little has grown from a small boy he could pick up to a youth who towers over him, but they still find it easy to talk for hours about movies, sports, and how life is going.
"My Little mainly needed a guy to do things with. We've never had any trouble. We go to hockey games, to Tech basketball, to karate lessons, and to a lot of movies, now that he's older. Every summer we'd go to Carowinds [amusement park] as a special treat," he says.
When they graduate from Big Brothers/Big Sisters next month, they will continue to see each other on an informal basis.
The agency ends its supervision of the match when a child turns 16, but encourages the Big and Little to continue informal contact.
"In the past, he was worried graduation would be the end of our friendship, but I told him not to worry. It's not over just because it's not official," Cannon says.
Big Brothers/Big Sisters confers with volunteers on a regular basis. McGuire, a former Peace Corps volunteer, says she does a lot of listening and occasionally suggests strategies for dealing with behaviors. Bigs are encouraged to set up goals that may be general, such as increasing the Little's cultural experience, or very specific, such as helping improve his math scores or the way he deals with teasing at school. Friendship is the main focus. Bigs are warned against spending too much money.
"Money is not what friendship is about. It's important that you give your time, but you're not Santa Claus," says McGuire.
"Every so often I realize how important it is to be an everyday role model," Rutledge says. "I'll be making cookies with her and think, 'This is the first time she's ever made gingerbread cookies from scratch. I wonder if she'll think about us doing this together for the rest of her life,'"
Big Brothers/Big Sisters, a national organization, operates its Christiansburg office on funds from the local United Way and proceeds from its fund-raiser, Bowl for Kids' Sake, which is beginning Saturday.
For more information about the organization, call McGuire or agency director Connie Kriz, at 381-0662.
by CNB