The BIG Give!

Kennedy Colon – Defender of Potential Kennedy Colon is a graduating Senior at the University at Buffalo where she studies Civil Engineering and is the current President of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) Collegiate Chapter. Through her affiliation with NSBE and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) she actively searches and engages in any form of volunteerism as a way to serve her community, if there is no opportunity present she will create one. Under Kennedy’s Leadership her NSBE Chapter has won the Chapter of the Fall 2018 Semester for Region 1 and most recently the Silver torch award for conducting the most technical events/outreach in the Region. For the Academic year 2018-2019 she has devoted her time to creating a pipeline…

Lasting Legacy of Friendship Big Sister Continues to Support Agency After Passing Big Brothers Big Sisters of Erie, Niagara and the Southern Tier recently celebrated a thoughtful legacy gift made by long-time Big Sister, Janet McMahon, who recently passed away. Janet made one more gift to the Big Brothers Big Sisters program to honor her lifetime commitment to helping children reach their full potential. With Janet’s gift, six local “Littles” in the Big Brothers Big Sisters mentoring program were chosen to receive a gift card to purchase school supplies with their Big Brother or Big Sister for the new school year. “A’laysia and I had a wonderful time shopping for school supplies for her first day of first grade. She told me she hasn’t gotten…

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Erie County is honored to celebrate Marilyn Gibson Young as our first Women Who Move the City Wednesday (WWMTC) Honoree!  With a strong commitment to community, Marilyn began volunteering with the Stop the Violence Coalition in 2007 and has served as a Buffalo Peacemaker, Fundraising Committee Member and Vice Chairwoman. With a passion for working youth, and a heart that wanted to see a decrease in youth violence in the City of Buffalo, Marilyn brought together like-minded women over 5 years ago to create W. A.V.E -Women Against Violence Everywhere, an anti-violence organization that takes a proactive approach to help decrease youth violence by way of mentoring programs, events and activities. The organization focuses on violence issues impacting girls ages…

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Erie County and Media Sponsor, Kiss 98.5 are excited to honor Amber Small as this week’s Women Who Move the City Wednesday Honoree! Amber serves as the Executive Director of the Parkside Community Association (PCA). In this role she is an advocate for 2,500 residents, working to enhance their quality of life through crime prevention, traffic calming, fair housing advocacy and more. Amber happily shares that she could not have asked for a better job because everyday she gets to go to work and help her neighbors. Amber and her significant other, Matthew Pelkey, even recently purchased a home in the neighborhood because of the strong sense of community! Outside of her work with the PCA, Amber serves on the…

A BIG thanks to the General Mills Foundation & the employees involved in the Buffalo Community Action Council for the generous grant of $5,000 for our Site Based Mentoring Program (SBM).  In addition to support as a funding partner, we’ve rom General Mills host activities for the children and mentors in our program. Recently, our kids enjoyed two wonderful opportunities with the General Mills in the Community volunteers.  A group hosted an afternoon of fun activities with the kids in the SBM program at Enterprise Charter School. Events included building marshmallow catapults and then playing a game to try to catch the flying marshmallows. The kids had a blast using math/science skills and of course, shooting marshmallows! We also had a great time with our friends…