Make a meaningful impact in a child’s life – become a mentor today!

Description of Duties:

As a Volunteer Mentor with Big Brothers Big Sisters, you’ll be matched with a young person (ages 6–16) to provide friendship, support, and guidance through regular one-on-one visits. Your role is to build a consistent and trusting relationship that helps your mentee develop confidence, resilience, and life skills.

Community-Based Mentoring:

• Commit to spending 2–4 hours per week with your mentee for a minimum of one year.

• Plan fun, low-cost outings based on shared interests (e.g., playing sports, going for walks, cooking, visiting local attractions).

• Act as a consistent and caring role model.

• Maintain regular communication with program staff for support and match monitoring.

In-School Mentoring:

• Visit your mentee for 1 hour each week during school hours (September to June).

• Engage in non-academic activities such as board games, crafts, or conversation in a supervised school setting.

• Focus on building self-esteem, emotional well-being, and social skills.

• Follow school guidelines and BBBS program standards.

All mentors receive training, ongoing support, and resources from our experienced team. No special skills required—just a desire to make a difference!

• Help adults with low literacy skills acquire and/or improve basic reading, writing, math and digital skills needed to function successfully in society
• Establish a learning relationship with an assigned student(s) based on mutual respect and a shared commitment to work together to achieve identified goals
• Plan, prepare and deliver student-centred learning activities and lessons
• Evaluate and recognize progress towards the student’s learning goals
• Comply with administrative requirements of the program
• Contribute to the ongoing improvement of the program

Tutors will meet with their own student, 1 on 1, twice per week, to assist with reading, writing, numeracy, computers, and essential skills.

A S2F Virtual Coach has a significant role to encourage children on a weekly basis for positive change physically, mentally and emotionally through fitness and literacy. Coaches help to build confidence and motivation within children, while reducing learning gaps and developing a
lifelong love of learning.

Our Brainworx! is an online afterschool program for students in grades 1-6 and runs twice a week between Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, for 30-40 minutes each session.  We focus on physical activity, literacy, and social-emotional development.  Each group has 10-12 students and 3-4 coaches.  Our Brainworx program has various start times between 3:30pm - 6:30pm EST.  

The Junior Coach Leadership Program is an online after-school program for students in grades 7 and 8. It runs on Mondays after-school for 1 hour and focuses on developing students’ leadership skills, while still incorporating physical activity and literacy.  Start times are between 4:30 and 6:30pm EST (4:30pm MST).

Being a S2F volunteer is one of the most enjoyable and fulfilling things you’ll ever do. Shape Canadian children's futures for the better by being a friend and a teammate. And the best part is, it’s actually a lot of fun. Volunteer and use your skills to help break the cycle of child poverty!

Details:

• Oct to May (fall and winter term only available)
• Flexible timing, between 3:30-6:30pm EST
• 10-12 participants and 2-3 volunteer coaches per group
• Sessions include fitness, literacy & mentoring activities, with emphasis on building character strengths
• An easy-to-use virtual platform to facilitate programming

If you are interested, please apply on our volunteer portal: https://timecounts.app/start2finish/applications/da9c982b-5106-4aa8-9650-d8e908fac3b6

Please note while this is a virtual opportunity, volunteers must be located in Canada.