Representatives from the Arizona Board of Directors of Big Brothers Big Sisters met in March with representatives of the Governor’s Office. They presented a formal request for community support in applying for Foundation Grants.

In May, many of our STARS BBBS collaborators met in Phoenix with a federal representative of the MCP grant to share our best practices. It is quite an achievement that our AZ STARS Mentoring Program was chosen as an exemplary program (one of six grantees across the country) to be studied in order to replicate promising practices. After learning of our STARS collaborators’ functions, the recruiting, screening, training, matching, ongoing services, and internal assessment policies and practices, the federal representative was highly impressed. She stated that we were “light years beyond” a number of other grantees.

Also, Susan Stewart-Rickelman showed a mentor recruitment video that Yavapai BBBS is producing. It has been helpful to PPP in development of two STARS recruitment videos to be filmed this month.

The Partnership is now working with Dennis Woods, Director of Corporate Video Solutions, in order to produce two promotional videos for STARS mentoring, to be used in all regions for STARS mentor recruitment purposes.