Bowl for Kids Sake with Jaymee Harvey Willms from Big Brothers Big Sisters of Washington County
This week, I'm joined by one of my favorite people, Jaymee Harvey Willms of Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Washington County.
On this week's show, Jaymee and I talk about their upcoming Bowl for Kids Sake bowling event, which helps raise money to support the organization. She also shares that BBBS of Washington County is in need of a new roof for their building in West Bend.
If you would like to support BBBS of WashCo, visit their website: https://www.bbbswashco.org/
You can register yourself or your team for Bowl for Kids Sake 2022 here: https://www.classy.org/campaign/bowl-for-kids-sake-2022/c377264
Transcript
She's also a big sister and she's also a podcaster and she's also Uh, awesome. And today, Jaymee joins me to talk about a really fun event that I've participated in in the past. My youngest daughter has won an awesome, uh, biking helmet from Mountain Outfitters in West Bend from this event, and we still have it to this day and it's awesome.
Anyway, Bowl for Kids Sake is a multi day and location bowling event that helps raise money for kids. Four big brothers and big sisters of Washington County. So we're going to jump into it. Here we go. Fifteen Minutes on Bowl for Kid's Sake with Jaymee Harvey Willms. On Fifteen Minutes with Fuzz.
So Jaymee, you're the CEO of Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Washington County, but you're also a big sister. So how did you get started with Big Brothers, Big Sisters?
[:I had quite a few kids that I was working with that I just kept hearing this kind of ambiguous term of the waiting list. And I was sitting there going, wait, why, why are they waiting? And I went home and said that to my husband and he was like, um, you can definitely do something about that.
[: [:And, um, I became a big sister just a little under five years. So it'll be five years, I think, in April. And so I was matched with my little, and we were matched based on a mutual interest in art.
[: [:You inquire, maybe on our website, maybe through a phone call. You fill out some paperwork. We do a very extensive background check and you interview.
[: [:What are you looking for in a big? What are your expectations? And then you're matched based on those mutual interests rather than time. So we do have some kids on our waiting list that have been waiting for years.
[: [:It could be in her office. And you meet, um, mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, whomever the guardian may be, and you meet your little and there's a match support there. One of my team members who's there to make sure everything goes smoothly, make sure we go over the rules, how this works. And so I walked into my little's house and they didn't say a word.
No talking. And mom happened to be out of the house, so mom was on speakerphone and dad was kind of just working his way through some of the information with our match support. And at one point I was like, yeah, I'm an, I'm an artist. I, I, so in my, other life. I, I'm an artist. So, and my little gets up and they sprint into their bedroom, come back with this wide rule notebook and just start flipping through pages.
No words said. And I was just like, okay, I can tell you want, you're like looking for that connection, but we don't know each other yet. So, you know, fast forward five years later. And last night we went snow tubing and the whole time we're just talking about school and life and You know, I'm always checking in on their grades, making sure that they're feeling successful in school.
In the beginning, it was a lot more like, what do you like? And we just tried a lot of things, but Now, sometimes it's just, hey, do you want to watch Netflix and eat pizza? Because that might be what we both need right now. Yeah,
[: [: [: [:I knew, you know, it was one on one in some way. I knew there was like a school buddies program. I've lived in, you know, four different states and I had always like seen it, you know, so I knew it was nationwide. A lot of times we're lumped in with the YMCA and Boys and Girls Club and that can be really confusing.
And the difference really is that we do one on one, one on one mentoring.
[: [:Definitely other types of programs, but really one to one mentoring is our focus. And we know that when volunteers and adults in our community get involved in a child's life who's maybe is at risk in some way, that we see the dividends pay off across the state. So if we just want to talk about Wisconsin, 98 percent of our littles do not become parents before the age of 18.
97 percent are graduating from high school. And if we just talk about here in Washington County, we have a hundred percent high school graduation rate of the kids that make it to graduation.
[: [:There was another student who was first generation college bound, Her big sister had been a little that was also first generation college bound. So when we look at where we know we are successful, we know that putting a caring adult in a child's life that hangs out with them twice a month and just checks in.
Makes the world of difference for most of our kids.
[:So, so from somebody's time commitment sake.
[:With a family or a big couple, you can definitely split up that dynamic on your time commitment. So that's the first thing I want to mention because I think a lot of people don't know that we can do that as a group. I think a lot of people think, okay, I need to spend eight hours. We're going to go to SkyZone.
We're going to see a movie. We're going to make a production of this. No. Uh, 86, that thought, get rid of it, throw it out the window. For a lot of our kids, just somebody who's checking in.
[: [:And they just put some music on in the Big Baked, and the Littles sat on the couch and read. They didn't even talk.
[: [:For some of our kids, they've never mowed a lawn before. Let's do some house chores. Let's learn how to do some of these things, especially if you've spent time maybe in foster care or Maybe you've lived in an apartment building your whole life and the big has a yard. Let's learn how to do some of these things because they're new skills.
And then on the other end, so we have a donor who donates every year so that we can go snow tubing.
[: [:So, two hours, eight hours, whatever you've got, really it's that consistent, caring adult, whatever that means.
[: [:Mm hmm. Today, however, post pandemic, that need has changed a little bit. We see the greatest need is for male volunteers or family volunteers in Hartford. We have about 46 kids on our waiting list. Some of them have been on the waiting list for three to four years. And the largest group on our waiting list are boys, and that's, that's true across the country.
So Washington County isn't special in that way, but we, we know the capacity for men and families in Washington County. And we know that when we put the call out in, in places like this, people do, do come to us and say, Hey, I can make that happen.
[:What do you look at? Are they typically married, have kids, unmarried, uh, age ranges? What's, what's the
[: [: [: [: [:That's the dream, man. Let's do that. I want to go fishing. I actually
[: [: [: [: [: [: [: [: So this year we are in: [:Right? So,
[:So, um, I think that's one of the reasons that we're here is we want to be able to provide a platform for us and then kind
[:So, um, you have events throughout the year and such and you have one coming up. Yep. Football for kids sake. And I've participated in it. It's a lot of fun. It's packed with bigs and littles and sponsors and people bowling and fun. And so it's coming up in February, right?
[:So almost every agency does a version of this, but here in Washington County, in a non COVID year, we would bring in about 350 bowlers. We bowl in West Bend and we bowl in Hartford. Our bowlers raise 75 a person, so you can raise that, you can donate it, you can absolutely go above and beyond it. Our top fundraiser every year, he has a sponsor that will donate 10 a pin.
Okay. That he hits during his two hour session. Nice. So, he always, um, just, you know, it's always like, I need you to bowl a good game! Everybody back up! Let him focus! But yeah, so, uh, Bowl for Kids, our goal this year is to raise 50, 000. Big Brothers Big Sisters takes about 400, 000 a year to run.
[: [:We do have a need for a new roof. We own our building in historic downtown West Bend. And, uh, you know, we try to be a good steward in the community. Um, it has become very apparent that we need a new roof.
[: [:Our bowlers raise over 20 percent of what is raised at this event specifically. When you do bowl, you receive a t shirt, we feed you, we give you pizza. There's, we don't pay for the beer, but. You can have one or as many as you need, but we do lane games. We have some really, really spectacular raffle prizes and we try to make it, we have a DJ.
The theme this year is under the sea. We have this great shark eating a bowling pin as our logo. So we do really advocate that people come and dress up for the event. It's, it's a, so I
[: [: [:Right. It's going to be on three dates this year, right?
[: [: [:If you know Dave's, it's, we've got cheap booze. We've got tons of party people. It's quite the experience. And then in the morning of the 26th, we do bowl at Dave's Lanes, but that's just for our matches. So we bring out the, we'll bring out the beach balls. Bumper bowling is out, you know, it's, it's, um, but we do have some ready to be matched kids that come.
So we do look for volunteers to come and bowl with a child that isn't matched on that date.
[: [: [: [: [: [:Elaine sponsors 250. If you would like to sponsor a team and receive Elaine sponsorship as a company, that is 600. Okay. And that's Those dollars go really, really far. We're a lean team. Sure. We really try to invest in our matches. Child safety is a priority. And so is a new roof.
[:Jaymee, thank you for coming on. Thanks for all you do for, for the community and for kids and, uh, and bigs here in the area. This, uh, it's very cool. We'll be a part of it again, and I invite you to come back on and talk about other events as you're coming up, but hopefully we can get that roof built for you and keep your papers dry.
[: [:As always, thank you for listening to another episode of Fifteen Minutes with Fuzz. Fuzz. If you ever have an idea for the show, HMU, as my child would probably write on TikTok, hit me up. The easiest way is email 15withfuzz at gmail. com. Spell that out. F I F T E E N, not the number. Spelled out at gmail. com.
15withfuzz at gmail. com. And that will do it. Have a great week. We will talk to you next Monday. New episodes post every Monday at midnight right here on the show. You can also find me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, all at 15 with fuzz. We'll talk to you next week right here. Thanks for listening.
