Being a child can be lonely in the best of circumstances, but much more so if you are without strong role models in your life to help you over the normal - and sometimes the abnormal - issues of growing up. Children with one or sometimes both parents in prison, or in single parent homes where the parent is struggling just to make ends meet and put food on the table, or in the homes of relatives, must sometimes think there is no place to turn.
The paragraph above describes 72 percent of the children involved with Big Brothers Big Sisters Lone Star, the world's largest Big Brothers Big Sisters organization, covering more than 100 counties and the eastern half of the state from the Panhandle to the Texas Gulf Coast.
BBBS is frugal with its money, but it still takes a lot of it to find and train willing volunteers and then match them with boys and girls who desperately need a mature adult role model in their lives. Mentors are called Bigs, and the children they are mentoring are called Littles.
One of the agency's biggest fundraisers is the Barrett Havran Memorial Big Taste of Fort Worth, held this year in April at the Omni Fort Worth Hotel. It was the third event carrying his name, but the 37th time for the event.
Havran, an avid Big Brother and a member of the Tarrant County BBBS board, died at his home, March 14, 2011. He was just 31. His parents, Joy Ann and Bob Havran, and his brother, Blake, wanted to do something "to turn the most devastating negative in our lives into a positive for someone," and launched a campaign to endow his dream of an educational program for youth involved in Big Brothers Big Sisters.
"We raised $1 million to endow the Barrett Martin Havran Little Steps Big Futures Program," Joy Ann Havran said. Little Steps focuses on elementary-age Littles, while Big Futures is aimed at 7th through 12th graders to encourage and help them graduate high school and on to college, the military or the workforce.
The state estimates that the cost to taxpayers is $292,000 over a lifetime for a high school drop out because of the drain on programs such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), child care, utilities, food stamps, Medicare and Medicaid. BBBS brags that 98.5 percent of its Littles are promoted to the next grade level in school, nearly 2 percentage points better than the overall state rate of 96.7 percent.
Joy Ann Havran is a well-known Fort Worth charity fund-raiser but said she had not been active in BBBS until her older son developed his interest. But his death drew her in. "It is an incredible organization that touches so many children's lives," she said. "I have heard first hand from the people who are Littles how this was their only lifeline at times. They were introduced to things that they never even imagined existed."
There are never enough volunteers to meet the need in the Big Brothers Big Sisters Lone Star service area. For more information on BBBS and to learn about being a volunteer, consult the website at bbbstx.org.
