Making a Difference Together

For the past 30 years, we have operated as Big Brothers Big Sisters of Mercer, Auglaize, and Van Wert Counties. In 2019, we disaffiliated from Big Brothers Big Sisters of America and became M.A.V. Youth Mentoring. We are the same mentoring program serving Mercer, Auglaize, and Van Wert Counties, with the same dedicated staff and board of directors. The need to disaffiliate came from increasing fees and demands on resources from the national office and restrictions on the mentoring model. We felt it was no longer in the best interest of our community to be a BBBS agency. We are pleased to keep our money 100% local. We are also excited about the possibility to expand our program and include other types of mentoring that work for our community.

As a youth mentoring program, we will continue to make meaningful, monitored matches between adults and children, ages 5 through 18, in the communities across our three counties. We will continue to develop positive relationships that have a direct and lasting effect on the lives of young people.

Vision: To help all children reach success in life.

Mission: Our mission is to provide all children facing difficulties a positive, professionally-supported one-on-one relationship that improves their lives, forever.

Accountability:  We partner with parents/guardians, volunteers and others in the community and hold ourselves accountable for each child in our program achieving:

• Improved relationships
• Avoid unsafe behaviors
• Gains higher confidence and self-values
• Achieve educational success

M.A.V. Youth Mentoring is Making a Difference

National research has shown that positive relationships between Mentors and Youths have a direct and measurable impact on lives.

By participating in our programs, our Mentors and Youths have expressed:

• They are more confident in their school or work performance.
• They are able to get along better with their families.
• They feel they have a positive influence in their life.