Gregory Straus – Defender of Potential Greg Straus is the a Licensed Real Estate Broker at 716 Realty Group and co-founder of Redline Rentals of Buffalo, a high performance and luxury company. Starting from a young age, Greg was instilled with a sense of community and help for others. Greg’s father took care of all the neighbors growing up. Eventually, Greg took over care for those elderly neighbors and started his first business shoveling snow. Being a product of catholic schooling, he always found himself volunteering in some way. Greg was moved to NYC after college for the local company he worked for and while he was there, he became a mentor to a young man named Joshua from Harlem, through a company-local school…
A BIG Thank You to our sponsors and all who attended our 5th Annual Women Who Move the City! The funds raised at this event will help us to match more Little Sister with Big Sisters thus, creating the next generation of Women Who Move the City! Congratulations again to our 2018 Honorees: Zandra Cunningham, Emily Felmet, Jody Galvin, Raziya Hill and Alexa Zappia! Lastly, thank you to our host year after year AND this year’s honorary Women Who Move the City awardee, Janet Snyder.
Holiday Corporate Partnerships Urban Outfitters Partners With BBBS During the Holidays! In honor of Giving Tuesday, Urban Outfitters will donate 100% of the proceeds of reusable gift wrap sales sold in store and online, between December 1-31, 2019, to Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. Click here to download the list of stores that will be carrying the gift wrap, which will also be available online at www.UrbanOutfiters.com Urban Outfitters, Inc., is a lifestyle product and services company, that has a long standing partnership with Big Brothers Big Sisters Independence. The relationship began after one of their employees participated in Big Brothers Big Sisters, first as a Little and then as a Big. As a result, Urban Outfitters decided to start a program where a number…
We are excited to announce that five of the beautiful Art of Friendship pieces, created by are Bigs & Littles, are now available as note cards! This wonderful project was sponsored by the Philanthropic Committee at Ingram Micro. A BIG thank you for their support of our Bigs & Littles expressing themselves creatively and for sponsoring this unique project! You can have a note card set of your very own for a $5.00 donation to BBBSEC. With the inside blank, they make wonderful all occasion cards! You can learn more about getting a set of your very own by clicking here. We are also looking for opportunities to “set up shop” at local companies and events. Additionally, the cards make a great added bonus…
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 (BBBSEC) received a grant of $37,950 from the Margaret L. Wendt Foundation to upgrade the organization’s outdated technology. Professional case management is critical to creating safe and long-lasting mentoring relationships. This technology upgrade strongly enhances the ability for BBBSEC’s professional case management to support and accurately document these relationships. “We were so very pleased to have the support of the foundation for a request that is very unique for an agency like ours,” shared Thomas Guagliardo, CEO of BBBSEC. “Our organization provides relationship support to hundreds of mentoring matches. To properly track these relationships and record outcomes, it’s very important we have a technology system that is up to date and efficient. Unfortunately, these are not the types…
