Coaches Corner A U G U S T 2 0 1 2 V O L U M E 2 I S S U E 8

BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS of the Mississippi Valley

Did you know that BBBSMV has accounts on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter?

Connect with us: @BBBSMV on Twitter, search for Big Brothers Big Sisters

of the Mississippi Valley on Facebook, or BBBSMV1 on YouTube!

Back 2 School Fiesta! Is it that time of year again already? Dav-enport Parks and Recreation is gearing up for the Back 2 School Fiesta and they would love for you to attend! This is a great com-munity event that will take place in a very fun, family friendly environment. It is a Family Fiesta, celebrating a fantastic sum-mer and starting off the new school year right with a little bit of Mexican flare! This family fun event has games, sports, crafts, activities, bingo, dunk tanks, piñatas, and more with prizes of back-to-school supplies!

Join the fun on Friday, August 10th at Prairie Heights Park, 5600 Eastern Av-

enue in Davenport from 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Freedigitalphotos.net

Coaches Corner

BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS of the Mississippi Valley

A U G U S T 2 0 1 2

Encourage your co-workers to become

MENTORS! We’d be happy to set up an

employee volunteer presentation at your

place of work.

Please contact Emily Jepsen at 563-323-8006

or ejepsen@bbbs-mv.org today!

Emily Jepsen, BBBSMV

Team registrations are now being accepted for the Quad City Bags Classic. Enjoy the great weather, a little bit of fun and competi-tion and support two important youth or-ganizations. The Quad City Bags Classic is

sponsored by Tri State Windows, Siding and Roofing and the Quad Cities River Bandits and will be held on Saturday, September 8th at Modern Woodmen Park. This isn’t just any bags tournament! This tournament is held ON the field at Modern Woodmen Park. A limited number of 144 teams will get the chance to test their skills as 72 custom-built, regulation-size bag sets are placed throughout the outfield of Mod-ern Woodmen Park. Registration is $40 per team and each team is guaranteed at least 5 games throughout the day. Teams will first play within a pool of teams (guaranteed at least 5 games), following by two "flight"

tournaments. The beneficiaries of tournament entry fees and sponsorships are Big Brothers Big Sis-ters of the Mississippi Valley and Boys and Girls Club of the Mississippi Valley. Volunteers are also needed to help set up and take down the bag boards and other event items before and after the event. To sign up a team or for more information, please call 563-323-8006 or visit www.bbbsmv.org.

Quad City Bags Classic

Looking for More Ways to Volunteer? There’s more to our organization than just Bigs and Littles, we also need volunteers to help with: office support, workplace tours for matches, match activity planning, Impact Circles, vendor event

volunteers, Snowbird volunteers, Putt-a-Round volunteers, Plant Sale volunteers, Bowl for Kids Sake volunteers, event planning committees, Big Impact volunteers, QC Bags Classic volunteers and much more! Contact us at 563-323-8006 to find out how you can help support BBBSMV.

Coaches Corner

BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS of the Mississippi Valley

A U G U S T 2 0 1 2

Dear Match Coach My Little and I are matched in the communi-ty-based program and do spend a lot of our time together outside of mine or his/her home. During our last meeting, we ran into some of my Little’s friends and they won-dered how we knew each other. My Little looked at me to respond, but I did not want to embarrass them. How do we go about ex-plaining our relationship to friends, peers or extended family? What a great question! First, I would like to say how awesome it is that you and your Little are exploring activities out in the com-munity. But, I know that there are many people that both you, and your Little, can run into during your outings. Also, as lunch buddies, a lot of the students not involved in BBBS at our school-based locations do not know what a “Big” is, either. Depending on where your relationship is at with your Little, I would suggest a couple different ways to bring this up during your time together. If you and your Little have been matched for a while and have established rather open communication, I would encourage you to talk about this during one of your next meetings or during a car ride. You can start out this conversation with your Little by bringing up your first impressions of the match or a funny story about one of your first meetings. Then proceed to direct the

conversation towards what they think of the match now and what they tell their family and friends at school about it. Eventually, the conversation can lead to a, “Well, what would we tell someone we ran into?” This directly answers the questions, and makes for a great opportunity to reminisce! If you and your Little are a rather new match or are not very open with your com-munication, I would suggest that you ask your little directly what he or she feels com-fortable telling his/her peers or friends. Your Little may not want anyone to know that they have a mentor, or they may just not be able to put into words what being a mentor means to their friends. Perhaps you can help them verbalize what your match means and what type of relationship the two of you have. For our lunch buddy matches, it may be a good idea to ask your Little to in-vite a friend during a visit once you have gotten to know each other a little bit. This makes for a great opportunity to help the Little’s friend understand your relationship and will also help you better understand how your Little interacts with peers. Whether you and your Little are loud and proud or slightly reserved about your match, what’s important is that you both feel com-fortable.

Xstream Cleanup Join other volunteers as we help clean up Quad City waterways on Saturday, August 11, from 8:30 a.m. until 11:30 a.m. Help us in heavy or light duty capacities as we clear

litter and invasive plants from the creeks and drainage ways in Scott and Rock Island Counties. Register online today at www.xstreamcleanup.org.

In addition to feeling great about helping out your community and the environment, participants will also receive breakfast treats, beverages, a free t-shirt, and a StudioOne Pass to River Roots Live. Please wear long pants and shoes that you don’t mind getting dirty. Clean up supplies will be provided, but feel free to bring your own. If you have any questions, call 563-386-9575 or visit their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/xtreamcleanup.

These area business sponsors have provided a high level of support for the Big Brother Big Sister programs. Without their support it would be very difficult to provide the programming we do in our region.

THANKS TO THESE GREAT SPONSORS

Coaches Corner

BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS of the Mississippi Valley

A U G U S T 2 0 1 2

HAPPY MATCH ANNIVERSARY TO OUR MATCHES

7 Savannah Sandi Davis 6 Brandi Allyson Sedlak 6 Brittnee Stacy Garrow 4 Tyler Kristine Kilburg

4 Ryan Dennis Reynolds

3 K’yi Bill Mitchell 1 Lakinda Emily Johnson 1 David John Wickwire

Year(s) Big’s First Name Big’s Last Name Little’s First Name

Meredith Price, BBBSMV

Just recently, our teacher Program Outcome Evalua-tions came out with significant results. The im-portance of Program Outcome Evaluations (POE) is that it helps determine the impact that the Big Brother Big Sister agency has on youth. POEs have five indi-cators that children are measured in, these are: child confidence, child competence, child caring, academ-ic, and mentor-teacher relationships. More specifical-ly, child confidence looks at if children have gained self-confidence and acquired a positive outlook on life, child competence looks at whether children have improved their decision-making abilities, child caring looks at whether children have developed loving and trusting relationships, and academic indicators look to see whether children have improved in any school

subjects since the beginning of the school year. With an 88% response rate, the results for Big Broth-ers Big Sisters of the Mississippi Valley were astounding! For 2012, Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Mississippi Valley showed that 72% of children showed an improvement in their self-confidence, 56% of children had improved their school perfor-mance, 66% had showed trust towards their teacher, 71% had showed improvement in their grades, and 57% of the teachers indicated that they have repeated contact with their student’s mentor. We would like to thank and congratulate all of our Big Brothers and Big Sisters! Let’s try to make an even greater impact next year!

Teacher Evaluation Results

We Need More Raves!

Please e-mail your match coach with a great “rave about your Little” story that can be shared in our monthly newsletter!

Coaches Corner

BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS of the Mississippi Valley

A U G U S T 2 0 1 2

Coaches Corner A U G U S T 2 0 1 2 V O L U M E 2 I S S U E 8

BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS of the Mississippi Valley

31 Mississippi Valley Fair (MVF) begins

1 MVF

2 MVF

3 MVF

4 MVF

5 BBBS Picnic MVF

6 7 8 9 Great River Tug Fest

10 Back 2 School Fiesta

11

12 13 14 15 16 17 19

19 20 21 22 23 24 25

26 27 28 29 30 31

SUNDAY MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY

AUGUST 2012

August Community Activities Mississippi Valley Fair: Jul 31-Aug 5 Check out http://www.mvfair.com to learn more about the daily activities or print off a brochure at http://www.mvfair.com/MVFAIR2012Brochure.pdf. Great River Tug Fest: Aug 9-11. Carnival rides, live entertainment, parade, food, arts and craft ven-dors and one of the largest fireworks displays on Friday night over the Mississippi River. http://www.tugfest.com! Quad Cities Free Summer Concert Series. You can find a free concert every night of the week throughout the summer at several different locations in the Quad Cities. Visit www.visitquadcities.com and click on the Sum-mer Concert Series link to learn more. Quad City Air Show: Sept 1-2. Check it out at http://www.quadcityairshow.com!

Rock Island Grand Prix: Sept 1-2. Go-kart rac-ing through the streets of Downtown Rock Island! Learn more at http://www.ridistrict.com!