The Unbreakable Bonds of Big Sister Boston

As her nimble fingers toy with the day’s arts and crafts project, fifth grader Yaslyn talks animatedly about her cousins and life at home. For almost a year and a half now, Rachel Johnson’s Friday afternoons have been dedicated to strictly this. When they were matched together at the beginning of Johnson’s freshman year at Northeastern, it wasn’t hard to see that the two would hit it off. While Yaslyn is a Boston native and Johnson a transplant from suburban Ohio, the duo shares a similar spunky nature and tendency to stir trouble. What began as an arranged mentorship has transformed into the sort of friendship that’s precisely what the Big Sister Association of Greater Boston seeks to create.

“It’s crazy seeing the way she interacts with her classmates and teachers and how that’s changed just even over the past year while I’ve been in her life,” Johnson said. “Our relationship has really grown a lot from where it started and now we’re truly friends. Since we’re used to seeing each other so often she’ll tell me about what’s going on in her life and she knows about my family just as much as I know about hers.”

Established locally in 1953, the organization serves 2,700 young girls throughout the greater Boston area solely through one-on-one mentoring. Like other Big Brother Big Sister organizations around the nation, the Boston chapter of Big Sister looks for individuals willing to commit at least a year to being paired with a child in need of a role model. The organization screens both the children and adults thoroughly, conducting background and reference checks on all Big Sister applicants. Once completed, applicants are invited to an in-person interview that’s intended to gauge what type of personality a Big Sister’s would be best conducive for.

About two years ago, Northeastern students banded together to start an on-campus chapter of Big Sister, through which current Big Sisters can provide applicants a sounding board to ease the process. The Northeastern chapter has its own match specialist for students, who guides students throughout the application process and ensures it’s more efficient for them. With about 60 Northeastern students currently assigned to Little Sisters, the chapter has also been working to expand a Facebook group that would serve as a forum for members to share pertinent ideas and experiences.

“On campus we’re the point people for members to come in and ask questions,” said Monika Gurnani, treasurer of the Big Sister chapter at Northeastern. “If I were to just apply on the website and they took a month to get back to me I would have no understanding of why that is. With the group on campus we invite people to come and talk about the process so we can better explain it to them.”

Upon completion of the application process, students can opt to be assigned as either a site-based or a community-based Big Sister. Those that are site-based are restricted to only weekday visits with their Little Sister that are within the bounds of her school. For women that are over 21, they have the opportunity to be a community-based Big Sister, where their visits are completely unrestricted and can take place anywhere from a baseball game to a park.

Despite all the women Big Sister of Boston draws in through their own efforts and those of college chapters like Northeastern’s, the organization still grapples with a disproportionate ratio of Little Sisters in seek of Big Sisters to the point that there’s an ongoing waitlist for Little Sisters. Given the communities in and around Boston, the organization sees no shortage of girls nominating themselves or teachers prompting such nominations.

“Boston is a really good city for Big Sister, since the schools it reaches are some that don’t have as much funding or have children coming from less stable family environments,” said Gurnani. “When a child grows up in an unstable environment they don’t really have any outlet to talk about it, since most kids won’t talk about that sort of stuff with their teachers or friends. Even if a Big Sister hasn’t necessarily dealt with the same situations that her Little Sister has, she can at least offer a perspective that she likely wouldn’t get otherwise.”

The research on these relationships only affirms their impact, with a 2011 survey of former Little Sisters indicating that girls in such programs are more likely to graduate from high school at a rate of 96 percent and enroll in post-secondary education at a rate of 90 percent. The positive improvement in developmental outcomes is also staggering, with areas that include social acceptance, scholastic competence, and grades displaying especially high growth.

“The whole mission statement of Big Sister is ‘Be present, not perfect,’” said Johnson. “It’s an amazing thing to be able to go mentor a girl while comfortable with how your personalities mesh and watch how it’s impacting her for the better. I’ve learned just as much from my little sister as she has from me. I feel a lot more connected to the city of Boston and to her just by being there. If I didn’t do Big Sister I’d likely still feel somewhat isolated being on Northeastern’s campus and away from the communities of Boston.”