Big Brother Big Sisters of Greater Moncton faces funding crunch

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Monctonis in desperate need of funding or the agency may need to close its doors, according to itsexecutive director.

"Currently the organization is in a state of need of support," said Peter MacDonald.

"We are currently reaching out the community and letting them know that our agency has seen a doubling in service over the past three years and financially we haven't been able to keep up with the demand."

We go in one of two directions - we either regress or start to progress. And our intention is for continuous growth and progress of the agency.- Peter MacDonald

MacDonald said Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Moncton needs the community to rally behind them to keep it in operation.

"In the past few years we've had almost a doubling in the amount of kids that we serve in what's considered our community based programs, which most people think of as our bigs and littles [program]."

MacDonald said the matches between a child and an adult volunteer are lasting more than a year.

He added there are about 100 children matched in the big and little program and 47 children are on a wait list.

"We have 33 boys and 14 girls that are on a wait list and boys wait for almost a year, year and a half and girls wait for three months," he said.

Lack of capacity

MacDonald said even if they could get more volunteers interested in becoming mentors, the agency does not have the capacity to support more matches at this time.

As a result, they have suspended matching any more kids with adult mentors.

"That's part of the reason we have to reach out to the community for this financial support is we actually don't have the capacity to create new matches," he said.

"So if we get new volunteers walking through the door right now, we don't have the ability to process them, screen them and put them into a match unless we can find stable secure long termfunding."

Each match costs $1,200 to support for a year. MacDonald said there are other costs including rent, staffing, insurance and more.

Without funding, the agency will not be able to support more children.

"We've increased the number [of matches]and we've improved the quality so to continue down that path we basically now need some financial investment into the programs."

MacDonald said90 per cent of their annual budget is fundraising and 10 per cent comes from the provincial government.

He added the amount from the province per child has not increased over the the past 20 years but other costs have.

Regress or progress

MacDonald said the agency has been operating in Moncton since 1973 and works hard to fundraise but finds it hard to compete for funds with larger foundations.

"We've been here for 43 years serving kids in our community and our intention is to ensure we stay here for another 43 and to do that we need to re-engage the community in understanding and supporting the agency."

MacDonald said they need funds to maintain their current status and plan for growth and expansion.

"We go in one of two directions we either regress or start to progress. And our intention is for continuous growth and progress of the agency."