Students bowl for charity

Big Brothers Big Sisters of South Central Indiana organized the 25th Bowl for Kids’ Sake, their largest annual fundraising event, Wednesday and Thursday at the Indiana Memorial Union Back Alley.

“For our IU segment of the campaign, we had a goal of raising $10,000 and we actually ended up raising over $15,000,” said Hannah Combs, president of the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization on campus.

The bowling event is the day the fundraisers and bowling teams celebrate the end of the fundraising process, Combs said.

“The money we raise for Bowl for Kids’ Sake is how we put a volunteer, a big, and youth, a little, together,” said Mark Voland, program director for Big Brothers Big Sisters.

Combs said it typically costs $1,000 per pairing of a big and little.

“All that money goes right back into the community and giving those kids mentors they need in their lives,” she said.

Big Brothers Big Sisters provides a one-to-one mentorship program between a member of the community and a child in the community who needs a role model to guide them down the right path, Combs said.

“Children are enrolled in the program and matched, basically, with a friend,” she said.

“Someone who usually has good values they can instill in the child.”

Bowl for Kids’ Sake also has a community event for the local business and organizations who gave donations, Voland said.

“We have our student group on campus and that is called Big Brothers Big Sisters at Indiana University and their mission is to put IU Bowl for Kids’ Sake together,” Voland said.

“They start in September, and they recruit other organizations to participate and raise money and they do a lot of kinds of little events in between.”

Combs said that in addition to the cash donations, participants in Bowl for Kids’ Sake have a website they can use to accept online donations.

Raffle tickets are sold during some fundraising events.

“We couldn’t do this without Indiana University students on all levels,” Voland said.

“They really help us in fundraising and, most of all, they are our backbone of being big brothers and big sisters.”

Through the program, Voland said volunteers help the children by introducing them to a new sport or hobby, or possibly even encouraging them to pursue higher education.

“All our bigs get more from this experience than their littles do, and that’s what we want — because if a volunteer is getting more from the experience than the child, then that means it’s working and that means that child is really having fun,” Voland said.

He said the volunteers work to make a connection with the children and change their lives.

“Those connections, in terms of bigs creating opportunities for these littles, is what’s so rewarding,” Voland said.