Met Their Match

One of the most valuable gifts a person can offer is their time. Eula Wilson has given this gift nearly every week for the past five years.

Wilson serves as a Big Sister in Big Brothers Big Sisters of Henderson County, a volunteer-supported mentoring organization with monitored matches between adult “Bigs” and children “Littles” facing adversity. Each week, she picks up 10-year-old Jayla Johnson, whom she has watched grow up for the last five years.

“She has come a long way,” says Wilson, who lives in Henderson and works at Evansville State Hospital as a pharmacy technician. “She is still a little shy. She has come out of her shell; her grades have really improved this last report card.”

“She was in a Christmas play. I tried to get her into one a few years ago, but she was too shy to do it. And now this is her second year in a row she has been in the Christmas play! She said a speech and sang a song. She did so good!”

Their relationship was one of the first to bloom out of the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Henderson County, which began in August 2011. Henderson County’s program is a local chapter of Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Ohio Valley, a nonprofit serving Vanderburgh, Warrick, Spencer, Perry, Posey, Pike, Gibson, and Knox counties in Indiana and Henderson County in Kentucky. Each potential Big must participate in a background check, an in-person interview, and provide references. After the screening process is completed, Bigs are matched with a Little between age 8 and 12, and a meeting is arranged between the case manager, Big, Little, and the Little’s family.

A national research study by Public/Private Ventures found that after surveying 950 boys and girls from eight BBBS agencies across the country in 1995, Littles were less likely to begin using illegal drugs, less likely to skip school, less likely to begin using alcohol, were more confident in their schoolwork, and had better relationships with their family.

Wilson, 43, says she strives to be consistent with Johnson and always picks her up when she says she is going to or communicates if something comes up. The pair often visits the library, Henderson County Family YMCA, the Koch Family Children’s Museum of Evansville, and Johnson’s ultimate favorite Chuck E. Cheese’s.

“I like going places with my Big Sister,” says Johnson.

Johnson is now a fourth grader at Cairo Elementary School and says she would like to be a Big Sister when she grows up.

“I’m hoping we can stay together until she graduates high school,” says Wilson. “I told her I would be at her graduation. I’m hoping we can stay together even after she goes to college.”

While Wilson has seen a difference in her Little, she also has felt the program’s impact personally as well.

“I’ve grown more compassionate for others,” she says. “I think I’ve always had that compassion in me working in the medical field, but when you’re working directly with someone you see their lifestyle is different than your own, and they have adversity in their life, it makes you have more feelings for others. I am more enlightened with what is going on with other people. This opens your eyes up to what is going on in the world.”

According to Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Ohio Valley, there are over 140 local children waiting to be matched with a mentor. If interested in donating your time or money, or in enrolling a child in Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Ohio Valley, contact 812-425-6076 or visit bbbsov.org.